The college basketball season might be a disappointment for all but the University of North Carolina, but the future is not as bleak. Next year’s powerhouse recruiting class, new personnel handling the clipboard, and lots of money from fans are all bright spots ahead. This is the life of Division I Men’s Basketball, and there is no deviating from the status quo anytime soon. The biggest event of the year is March Madness, where 65 teams duke it out for a shot at immortality. Along the way lies another incentive: money. Since the participating schools turn a huge profit off of the tournament, some of that money should go back to the athletes as a reward.
There are many arguments against paying athletes. A classic is that it takes away from the amateurism of the college game. That is, athletes should feel privileged to just be competing in the sport they love and money should not be an incentive. If this were truly the case then schools would not spend millions of dollars on coaches because coaches should want to work for less based on their love of the game.
Additionally, paying athletes a few thousand dollars over the course of four years would not be nearly enough for them to become prima donnas. The notion that giving athletes money would encourage them to spend it on expensive luxuries is absurd. They are college students just like we are and need the same amount of financial resources as any other college student. Since not all athletes are covered by a scholarship, the money would serve for them to pay off tuition, rent, and other personal expenses.
Currently, the NCAA Men’s Division I Tournament gets $6 billion over 11 years from its television contract with CBS. According to CNN, the 34 schools from the major conferences in last year’s tournament had an average revenue of over $9 million that included money received based on their performance in the tournament, giving them an average profit of nearly $4 million. That huge profit margin should go in part to the people that helped them earn it.
Paying athletes makes the most sense in basketball. A recent NBA rule change has declared that players must be at least one year removed from high school before declaring for the draft, either spending that year in college or professionally in Europe. If the overseas market for basketball continues its ascent, there should be more and more teams offering top high school recruits contracts, and the NCAA will be out of the race for these marquee names because they cannot provide the same monetary incentive to play in college. By far the most watched final in the past six years was the 2005 match between the University of North Carolina and the University of Illinois. The matchup had seven future NBA players, the most notable being the numbers two and three picks Marvin Williams and Deron Williams, respectively.
The NCAA would not be competing with European basketball because as of now, the exposure to professional teams for college athletes is a greater benefit than the salaries that professional teams would offer high school players. However, the NCAA should pay their student athletes enough to make them want to come to college without financial worries. The point is that drawing big names to college athletics — as opposed to letting them play professionally elsewhere — greatly helps ratings and is not a bad bargaining chip when it comes to television contract renewal for the tournament.
The most important reason for paying athletes is since sports take up so much time, they are not able to get jobs on the side. Giving athletes stipends for their commitment would be analogous to hiring them for the college they attend. These days, college athletes are no longer students who happen to play sports. Top recruits are perceived as athletes more than they are as students and since these athletes draw in so much money, they should receive just compensation.
Hung Vu’s column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at h.vu@cavalierdaily.com.
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