Photo of a Purdue Men's basketball player dunking the ball

Zach Edey, a center for Purdue University, in a game last year. (Dylan Buell/Getty Images)

Should College Athletes Be Paid?

January 29, 2024

College football is big business. On average, it brings in $31.9 million per school, per year, according to the financial website Zacks.com. A large portion of that revenue comes from deals that schools make to televise the games with broadcasters and cable channels such as ESPN. At many schools, football coaches earn multimillion dollar salaries. And in 2022, the N.C.A.A. generated $870 million from TV and licensing rights for sports, mainly football and basketball.

Amid criticism that college athletes had no way to cash in on their success, the N.C.A.A. changed its rules a few years ago to permit student-athletes to profit from their “name, image, and likeness.” Is that enough? Considering how lucrative sports like football are for the N.C.A.A., should the athletes on the field be paid? A sports columnist and someone representing the N.C.A.A. face off.

The college sports establishment likes to call the athletes who play varsity sports at universities “student-athletes.” A far more accurate term would be “athlete-students.” Putting the word “athlete” first would at least let everybody know what the priorities are.

This is especially true for football and men’s basketball players. Why? Because unlike every other student who has been accepted into the universities they play for, the football and basketball players are there to generate revenue for the schools. Without their athletic ability, many of them wouldn’t have been admitted.

My belief that football and men’s basketball players should be paid is based almost entirely on economics. College football and basketball are multibillion-dollar businesses. They have billion-dollar TV deals and corporate team sponsors. The coaches for these teams earn millions. Even the assistant coaches make hundreds of thousands. Schools have money for fancy training facilities, charter jets to away games, and state-of-the-art arenas. Yet the labor force—and that’s what the players are—gets nothing. Name another industry where labor gets nothing. You can’t.

College football and basketball are multibillion-dollar businesses.

The N.C.A.A. and the college sports establishment argue that the players are “students first” and that amateurism is the essence of college sports. Yet players have to choose classes that don’t interfere with practice. Indeed, they often don’t really get much of an education because the team comes first, they put in 50 hours a week on their sport, and their coach is effectively their boss, with the ability to cut them from the team, just like a pro coach.

The truth is that fans wouldn’t care if players were paid. But the college sports establishment uses the self-serving argument about amateurism because, frankly, it has helped them get very rich.

—JOE NOCERA

Co-author, Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA

After spending four years on the varsity volleyball team at California University of Pennsylvania, I’m passionate about re-imagining college sports to better meet the needs of college athletes. But paying student-athletes to play would turn us into employees, completely altering the student-athlete experience as we know it.

Of the more than 520,000 N.C.A.A. student-athletes, 12 percent say they wouldn’t even be in college without their sport. Each year, N.C.A.A. schools award $3.8 billion in athletic scholarships. Unlike many of their peers, scholarship student-athletes don’t leave school burdened by a mountain of debt.

Many people wrongly believe that the N.C.A.A. and its members earn millions of dollars in profit annually. In fact, athletic departments that take in more money than they spend are a distinct minority, and the N.C.A.A. distributes the majority of its revenue back to member campuses and conferences. That money funds programs supporting the academic needs and well-being of student-athletes, including scholarships and services that help run its 90 championships across 24 sports.

Paying student-athletes would force schools to field fewer athletic teams.

Some of the recent changes that the N.C.A.A. has announced—such as providing athletically related medical coverage for student-athletes after graduation and financial help to complete a degree after they’re done playing college sports—will also dramatically improve the student-athlete experience.

Paying college athletes would force many schools across all three divisions to make tough choices and field fewer athletic teams. It would rob many students of the opportunities that I had such as competing while earning my degree and learning the life skills that participating in sports brings: resilience, discipline, teamwork, and time management. The N.C.A.A. has a responsibility to provide a world-class athletic and academic experience for student-athletes. Paying student-athletes to play would be absolutely detrimental to that mission.

—MADELEINE McKENNA