(ThyBlackMan.com) In the 150-years of college athlete’s existence, college athletes have not been compensated, and lots of controversies surround this: If it is fair to force (NCAA) college-bound scholarship holding athletes to play for no pay? Keep in mind that they do not have a union to represent them. Unlike their professional counterparts, they do not have the regulations in place to protect them as professional players do. I don’t even want to compare them with Professional athletes. Professional athletes have access to a multitude of benefits that the college student in any way you can think of – is it about the considerable allowance they receive, the facilities, or the luxurious healthcare –they literally have what they need for motivation as an athlete every day.
NCAA policy and why it is not a good fit for young athletes
Did you know that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) surpassed $1 billion in revenue for the first time in 2017, and the college-athletes who put their bodies on the line every day for injury never see a penny of that? Triggering one of today’s greatest scandals in college athletics is this unethical setback — should college athletes be paid?
It should not be controversial in and of itself, as the NCAA tournament has become a prominent national sport every spring, especially in the United States, and has merited the award of being the only nation in the world that hosts big-time sports at higher learning institutions with over 80 million people watching it on TV and entertained about the games around- it is definitely an event of considerable gist at offices, workshops, malls – people talking about their favorite athletes.
College sports are now available on various internet channels. Fox Sports and other cable networks are creating channels specifically to cover these sports from different areas or divisions. It is no doubt that College sports have become a business, with so many people paying for tickets and watching on television.
Sadly, this widely spoken sport has come with a litany of controversies in recent years. These have made the limitation of college sports a serious debate, particularly at a time of this COVID’19 pandemic when colleges are preparing to resume. It’s quite frustrating, isn’t it? Whenever we profess rage that another college-athlete takes money under the table after deserving such professional endorsement or sponsorship through hard work, I’m somewhat unclear why this should be a burden? Beyond that, the real issue is the very nature of college athletics, in which college-athletes generate billions of dollars for colleges and private businesses despite not receiving anything for themselves.
According to published reports, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, and Penn State athlete teams — to name only a few big-revenue athlete colleges— generate revenue between $35 million and $85 million in profits a year, even after paying multimillion-dollar wages to its coaches. If you evaluate such money with such high-we can’t expect the student-athlete behind such productivity not to have the right to any because they are on scholarships.
For all the anger around NCAA, I am not in support of players being illegally compensated or recruited, but can we talk about the two false ideals on which the NCAA defends its existence that has in one way or the other contributed to the corruption exhibited by college-athletes —”amateurism “and the” student-athlete”—are dishonest hoaxes, legalistic confections propagated by the colleges so they can exploit the talents and the skills of college athletes. The problem at the heart of college athletics isn’t that some college athletes get paid, but that many of them are not and do not have adequate access to a multitude of specialists to screen and sustain a good practice that can shoot these rising stars to prominence. Athletes from NCAA have no choice but to meet rules and are not compensated-something worth describing as a modern slave. As a “lettered” athlete myself I often wondered what would come of immorality in sports at the high school and college levels. Slave is no farfetched term here, yet, one that bears closer scrutiny.
The whole idea, the provocateurs claim, is amateurism, and that Paying athletes will ruin the prestige and popularity of college sports. Some retired college athletes even argue that money would have spoiled the joy of the game with their teammates, the sanctity of the bond they shared would have had no place. This writer too, had once unconsciously shuddered at the idea of paying college athletes.
But after an investigation that took me around, researching about the myths behind this tyrant bodies, I began to conclude that sentiment blinds us to what is before our eyes. Big-time college sports are entirely sold out. They generate billions of dollars each year, making money from the unpaid work of college athletes, many from low-income inner-city backgrounds and inadvertently boast of their progress along with the college and private associates at the expense of allowing these unsuspecting young athletes to move to professional alliances, get sponsorship endorsements as well as the benefit that comes with becoming a bona fide professional athlete.
Again, analogies of Slavery should be used with caution. The university students are not slaves. But a thorough understanding of this issue exemplifies that corporations and colleges are enriching themselves using uncompensated young people, whose status as “student-athletes,” denies them constitutionally from receiving. While that same constitution over-rule banning the exploitation of young talents. I’m yet to find a word to convey this act; perhaps Empire-building could be a more fitting metaphor: as governed by the NCAA, college athletics is a structure enforced by well-meaning, yet, misguided paternalists, only to be built with hoary sentiments about caring for the well-being of college athletes. Through its zealous pursuit of false ideals specific to the almighty dollar, the NCAA has ruined innocent young athletes’ hopes, dreams, and aspirations. There is no other way to explain it other than to say it is unjust.
Today’s NCAA is a classic alliance in many respects, and any efforts to overhaul it have been mostly fruitless. However, people’s cries are already making improvements around the edges, and the time is right for a significant change. And whether the powers that be like it or not, significant changes are coming. Pressures are escalating on several fronts: in Government, the judiciary, sporting breakaway competitions, student revolt, and public anger. In the end, victory will be obtained for the just without prejudice; or as the late John Lewis might say, “Let’s keep their feet to the fire with continuing Good Trouble!”
Staff Writer; Stanley G. Buford
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