A billion dollar industry
by Jesse J. Lewis, Sr.
This is the approximate dollar amount that the NCAA will make from March Madness Basketball Extravaganza. The support is growing for college athletes to get paid.
At the present time, only 33 percent support paying college athletes. At 64 percent, opposition is nearly twice as high as support, with 47 percent strongly against the idea. Nearly every demographic and political group opposes it except non-whites, for whom support is at 51 percent. The breakdown among whites (73 percent oppose, 23 percent support) tilted strongly in the opposite direction, echoing the perspective of NCAA President Mark Emmert.
“It’s laughable, but it’s not funny,” ESPN analyst Jay Bliss said.”They pay the scholarship, which is the amount the school pays to itself. They’re not out a nickel. The athletic department pays the school, then they claim that they’re poor. Then they pay themselves these outrageous salaries that are market-based, but they say they don’t have any money to give to the players, but they have $8 million to give to a football or basketball coach.”
Still, advocates of a “pay-for-play” model remains the most vocal, pointing to the discrepancy between a free-market employment system within athletic departments, in which universities can hire coaches and administrators for salaries reaching millions of dollars, to a capped economic system for athletes, whose earnings are limited to the value of scholarships, no matter how much money their success – and likeness – may generate for the schools they represent.
If you were to ask some sports figures such as A.J. McCarron, quarterback for Alabama, who said:
“I truly believe, during some point in the future, college athletes should be paid. The NCAA is not a bad organization – don’t get me wrong, it’s an unbelievable organization – but in some way they’re taking advantage of college athletes that sign their name into a certain school. When I was at Alabama, I think revenue when we won the national championship that year was like $62 million. And when we won it in New Orleans in 2011, it was like $78 million. Then when we beat Notre Dame in 2012, it was like $92 million. I mean that’s absurd money.”
Most college athletes also believe they should be paid.
I think otherwise because there are only two sports that make money for the college. These two sports fund all the other sports which don’t make any money. For example, track and field, baseball and softball, swimming, gymnastics, tennis, golf, volleyball, don’t bring in any revenue.
While I believe they should not be paid, I do believe the colleges should make other concessions such as purchasing clothes and computers for the needy students, buying plane tickets in the event of death in the family, scholarships for higher degrees at no cost to the students, and several other things they could do to help the athletes.
e-mail: jjlewis@birminghamtimes.com
