Persuasive Speech

Ever since the beginning of college sports, there has always been one rule that never changed. That rule is that college athletes will not be paid by the NCAA or college for their participation in a sport. College players have been treated as objects over the years and there needs to be a change. Student athletes should be paid for their sacrifice of time that should be spent on academics and physical health in their sport of choice. Student athletes give up mass amounts of time for their sport of choice which makes them give up time that could be used to study. College athletes should be paid by the college for their sacrifice that they put into the school and their athletic program. The NCAA should pay them because the NCAA is actually the only people that are benefiting from the sport.

    The students themselves struggle sometimes. The student athletes go from being big named players to being nothing. On the court or field they are everything, but in a real life situation they might be struggling financially. “It was frustrating to win championship after championship every year, hear thousands chant my name, and then go to my bedroom to count my change so I could buy a burger”(Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.) The players names are being chanted and selling out arenas, so why should the players have to struggle off the court. A big named player should not have to struggle to get a burger. “For those of you who think the life of a college athlete is all glitter and glamour, you couldn’t be more wrong. If you came to college from a family with money than you were fine, but if you came on an athletic scholarship from blue-collar working families, then it was tough going. It wasn’t hairshirts and gruel, but it wasn’t nightly yacht parties and frat keggers either. It was mostly holing up in the dorms at night because you couldn’t afford to go out and you needed a lot of rest after punishing practices.” The student athletes who do not come from rich families do not have a good time. They have no money to go out and do the things that they want to do during their freetime. “Their families, and the rest of the African-American community, don’t want to continue the same policies of having their efforts exploited while others profit.” The policies are controlling what the student athletes need. Their families might also need money. Being a student athlete is not all good. They tend to struggle a lot (Abdul-Jabbar).

The NCAA is getting paid too much money from the players to not give them any of the earnings. The NCAA is making billions of dollars off of the student athletes. The players that are out there risking their health for the sport are receiving nothing. “$11 billion is being made by the NCAA for three weekends a year. The athletes themselves get none of it. How is that fair? All while compensating the young athletes who are at risk with – relative to the money being made by sports barons – about the same as little kids we used to send into coal mines earned: a few coins and lots of chronic ailments. Sound too social justice warrior hyperbolic? During the three weeks of March Madness basketball last year, the NCAA earned $900 million dollars while $9.2 billion was gambled on the outcome. The players working so hard out on the courts earned zero income. Nada. Nothing” (Abdul-Jabbar). It seems extremely unfair for the NCAA is be getting paid, while the players who are actually doing all the work get nothing. That is a lot of money and none of it is being shared to the players even though they actually deserve it. “This year, the University of Alabama reported $143.3 Million in athletic revenues -- more than all 30 NHL teams and 25 of the 30 NBA teams. Much of the huge revenues collected from college athletics do not go directly back into the classroom” (Edelman). The biggest football school, the University of Alabama, is getting paid a crazy amount of money. Again, the athletes are getting nothing. Football has the most contact out of any sport too. Every game a football player gets injured and some of them even lose their lives due to helmet to helmet injuries. Football is too dangerous to not be receiving any money from the NCAA. The NCAA is benefiting too much from the student athletes to not have them be compensated for their sacrifice to the game.

The college athletes are forced to put their academics second. They do not get everything out of the academic part of their education because they are forced to put an astronomical amount of time into their sport. “Bryce Love is the latest big-time college football player to embarrass himself and his university with his scandalous off-the-field behavior. Love was a no-show at Pac-12 Media Day, which he skipped so he could go to class. That's right. Class” (Carden). The students sometimes need to miss class due to their responsibilities on the court/field. This is not right as academics should come first. “At some schools, the road to the NCAA men's basketball championship may require student-athletes to miss up to a quarter of all class days during their Spring semester” (Edelman). Basketball players are forced to miss a significant amount of class time due to the yearly event that is March Madness. If the players are not in the classroom, then how are they supposed to learn? “It’s somewhat of a misconception that a full-ride scholarship guarantees the certainty of a free tuition throughout the entire college experience. This is not the case. If a severe injury occurs, the scholarship may be dropped and the athlete will be left empty handed” (Galloway). If a athlete is no longer useable by the college, then they cut the student athlete off. This proves that the college only cares about athletics. Student athletes are not fairly treated considering that they are forced to put academics second. What is the point of going to college if you are not receiving all the education that you are actually there for.

Injuries are a big factor that should be put into the point that student athletes should be paid. Injuries happen all the time in sports and it is unknown when they could occur and who they could impact. A first round draft pick could bend his knee the wrong way tearing up something in practice and just because of that, the first round draft pick now becomes a late round steal. He is no longer worth a first round pick because the team taking him would be taking a risk on a now injured player. Dropping from the first to somewhere in the sixth round is a big deal for the draft prospect. Them dropping that far costs them millions of dollars. This is why student athletes need to be paid.  Not every college athlete actually goes pro, only a small percentage actually makes it. Their careers in their sport is not guaranteed and if a terrible injury was to happen, the student athlete would have no money to fall back on. They go from being worth millions to being worth thousands if an injury was to happen. If student athletes were paid in college, then they would have the reassurance that they could always be financially stable even if a horrific injury was to impact their career.

Due to all the main points which are that the families struggle, the NCAA makes a lot of money, time commitments, and injury concerns it can be shown that the student athletes need help. If the rules stay as they are now, then the student athletes will still struggle. Student athletes should not need to struggle to get by. Sometimes careers get ended before they even start and they have no money to fall back on. How is this fair to the student athletes? Yes, they do get a free education, but that’s like saying “at least you get a jelly bean” compared to how much revenue is being made for the NCAA. The student athletes make an extreme amount of money for the NCAA. This is too one sided in favor of the NCAA and this needs to be changed.