There are as many "solutions" to the NCAA athlete violations as there are people getting in trouble and most of them have something to do with paying the athletes. I mean through TV, sponsorship, ticket sales and winning, these kids are making millions for these huge schools and are forced to be...well a normal college student without much spending money. Shouldn't they get a piece of the pie they are building up?
Well I for one don't agree that they should be paid for various reasons, but that discussion can go on forever and we'll never make everyone happy. SO instead of arguing my point about that, I'm gonna skip that and simply point out why paying student athletes would never work.
First of all, there is this thing called tuition that most students have to pay. And while we all want to believe it's just "The Man" taking money from us, it's actually because colleges take a bitch-load of cash to actually operate. Think of all the teachers, janitors, professors, IT people, repairs, bills, etc. that you see everyday walking through a campus. All of those things/people need money thrown at them and that comes from the college. Many of the high-level athletes get scholarships which, while getting the school a hopefully winning athlete, ends up losing the school up to 200K over their four years, depending on scholarship amount and tuition totals...That's a lot of money if you spread the scholarships over an entire team or multiple sports even if they aren't full-rides.
Secondly, How much would you give them? many people say "just a couple hundred" would be fine for extra cash. Alright, well think about this; you'd have to give everyone the same amount, at least as far as men and women go...and probably across all sports too. The Argument many people make is that the student athlete does everything a normal student does, but instead of a job, they do a sport...the money would make up for the lack of time for a job. Alright, that makes sense, but then you'd have to give all student athletes the same amount. The rowing team practices as much as the football team, despite drawing a crowd of 10 to a meet, while football brings 60,000. They don't have time for a job either, so in that regard they are equal to the big football stars. Even if you only gave 200 a month to the athletes... thats 200$ per kid, there's 50 or so guys on a football team and that's already $10,000 per month...just for the football team. take into account the rowing team, CC, track, soccer, baseball, softball, volleyball, field hockey, ice hockey, basketball, curling, and any other sport (and there are many more) plus the women's sides of each of those and that is more money than maybe even the huge schools could afford.
Thirdly, it's not like they get to school, get the full-ride and then the school drops them on the curb and says, "Hope you got some cash to pay your bills and eat. See ya at practice." The kids on the scholarships already get compensation for a lot of things. Food-plans, living help, even clothes from the team sponsors. Even the guy that just ratted out Ohio State said he could have applied to get 500$ per month for housing but he would have had to "save the receipts"...instead he sold his big-10 ring since proving your paying that money for rent is too hard.
Lastly, most of the kids getting caught aren't exactly stealing change to do laundry. They are selling thousand dollar championship rings, hundreds of dollars in game-play uniforms, and getting ridiculous deals on $50K cars. If the problem was enough money to live like a college kid, I'd get it...but when they are breaking the rules so they can get tattoos, jewelry, cars and other luxury items, I'm not sure that the simple "200$ for living expenses" is really gonna make the grade for most of the violators.
It's easy to say "pay them" if you are thinking about the big sports, but people forget that the little sports take just as much effort, have less support, and most likely don't give as good of scholarships to the athletes. The schools simply can't afford to pay the athletes equally. Most of the students going to college come out with anywhere from 5-100K in debt when they are done, let alone having "extra spending money" every month. These athletes that are "so unfairly treated" are getting a free education that any other kid would gladly accept, with or without the chance to play a sport and be famous.
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