The one type of athlete that I didn't touch on in part 1 were college athletes. While I think you can justify what professional athletes make, there is no way I can justify paying College athletes and the reasons why are as follows.
They get scholarships. Scholarships can be worth up to $100,000, are you telling me that isn't payment for these players? These scholarships are also how they get into the school, meaning they're still students. They have volunteered themselves to the school sports team and got into the school for fairly cheap or maybe even free.
These players are amateurs not professionals. There aren't many things in which an amateur or non-professional are paid well (if they are paid at all). Why should sports be any different. They are at the school as students, or are supposed to be anyway. Students don't get paid for anything so why should a select few at the school be paid, and at what point do you draw the line? If the athletes are being paid, does that mean the musicians should be paid? Or the members of the drama program? Afterall, the professionals in those businesses are being paid, why not the college students?
The ones who go to the pro leagues are going to get paid anyway. Any of these players entering the NHL, MLB, NFL, or NBA are going to get a healthy contract from their respective teams anyways. The players that are top players in the draft are going to get an extremely healthy contract from their team. As for the ones who won't go to a pro league? Well in that case they should be that much more focussed on their studies so they can get a solid job in their field. If they work hard in school they won't need the money that they would get paid in college.
I understand that for the time which they are students these players (including the ones on scholarships) do need some money to pay for needs and some wants (especially if they attend an out of state college), so that is why there is one form of getting paid which I think should be legal. If one of these athletes in their own time, wants to go sign autographs or do an endorsement deal, that I would be okay with. However, that's the only place they should be allowed to get money as athletes, nothing from the schools. Not only does it not make sense for the players to be paid, but it wouldn't make sense for the schools to pay them and may even hurt some schools.
It could hurt smaller schools. One of the things of beauty of college sports is there are hundreds of schools competing, and of all these schools most of them are good at some time or another and each season dozens of them are fairly high competitors. If however, they had to start paying athletes some of the smaller schools wouldn't be able to afford it and the competition would dwindle from dozens to about a dozen.
Comments always welcome,
Darren.
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