College Athletes: Should They be Paid?

We'll move away from the professional players in this post and talk a little bit about collegiate players. It's been long debated whether or not they should get paid, but the topic has been quite a bit more popular than usual the past few years. NCAA athletes currently aren't even allowed to sign items for money or sell their NCAA for money either.  Many of these athletes do get free college tuition though, which is a huge benefit.

Some studies have shown that athletes put in around 40 hours a week on their sport.  That includes games, practices, training, watching film and more.  For football it is estimated that some athletes spend just under 45 hours a week whereas basketball and other sports are a little bit under 40. If they used those hours to work they'd make just under $300 in a week with Iowa's minimum wage. These athletes are probably taking 12-15 credit hours as well, which equals out to be around 55 hours a week including both sports and school. These athletes aren't getting much time to study during the week, let alone just relax after their tough practices.  

Johnny Manziel is a big reason this topic has been on the rise in the past few years.  He generated a huge amount of revenue for Texas A&M, or at least it is believed that he is the main reason why the school made so much money that year. Let's see why.  Manziel won the Heisman Trophy in 2012.  From September 1, 2012 to August 31, 2013 the school made a whopping $740 million in donations. That is a record for Texas A&M. In fact, the school hadn't ever come within even $300 million of that amount ever. The school even auctioned off a dinner with Johnny for $20,000.  Someone literally paid $20,000 just to have dinner with him. The year he was quarterback, the bookstore had sold out all 2,500 replica #2 jerseys they had in stock. A typical jersey goes for at least $60, so let's just do the math. 2,500 jerseys at $60 is $150,000. That's not counting jerseys that aren't sold in bookstores, like online fan shops. Manziel saw literally none of that money. Is that fair? I don't think so, but the NCAA thinks otherwise.

Players aren't allowed to sell NCAA merchandise or items signed by them either.  If they sign one of their jerseys and sell it to someone, it is considered illegal by the NCAA and usually ends in suspension or some type of punishment.  In 2010 another great player, Terrelle Pryor and a few of his teammates were suspended because they sold jerseys, champions rings, and other items. They also got tattoo discount of some sort that had a part in the suspension as well. That, in my opinion is wrong, but selling items that belong to you? If it's mine I should be able to do what I want with it. The fact that players can't use their popularity to make money, like signatures for example, is just something I don't seem to understand.