Blog Post 2

In EHE, the main article I read is “The Shame of College Sports,” by Taylor Branch. It is a 19-page article about the amount of money college sports racks in, and the problem that colleges don’t pay their athletes. This article somewhat hits home, due to the fact that I am in college, and used to be an athlete myself, so I can somewhat appreciate the hard work and dedication that is put into sports to be successful. For P2, I want to focus on the issue of college athletes not being paid for immense amounts of money they make for the school. Of the problems arising in college athletics, I would like to focus on the athletes not being paid. These men and women spent endless hours in the gym, on the field, in the weight room, and in the film room to be successful at what they do, and make their respective university millions of dollars. As you can see below, the major universities in the country, like Alabama, Iowa, and Texas, make tens of millions of dollars of profit from games, championships, product sales, and everything else that makes these schools money.

The problem I would like to solve is the NCAA forbidding athletes from being paid in any sense. This includes from the school, sponsorships, and even from outside sources. I believe that these athletes put enough blood, sweat, and tears into their sport that they deserve some compensation. From my own experience, high school sports is a major step down, and being successful in high school sports takes an immense amount of time on the field, and in the weight room and film room, so I can only imagine how much work a college sport would be. Plus, they have to handle the workload of college, which from experience I know can be immensely stressful at times on its own. These men and women manage a massive amount of responsibility, and sometimes can’t even buy clothes for themselves. This is why I want to compensate these men and women, so they can actually somewhat enjoy college without also having to balance a financial struggle.

            A solution to this problem could be simply paying the students minimum wage. This way they have spending money, because the majority of these athletes are here on scholarship, and have room and tuition paid for. Where there could be a problem here is the athletes that don’t live in dorms, or they don’t have theirs paid for. The minimum wage wouldn’t pay for room and board, let alone tuition and all the other college expenses. Another solution would be to pay these college athletes based on their fair market value. The fair market value of these athletes is based on their performance, and how much money they are bringing into the University. As you can see below, this method could become pricy very quickly. For the average college football player at Texas, you would be paying $604,000. This also doesn’t account for the all-stars of the team, which would be being paid more, due to their increased popularity. This also doesn’t account for the other college sports, like basketball, baseball, and women’s sports.

My solution would be to give every sport a budget based on how much they make the school, and from that budget they pay their athletes. For example, the college football budget would be higher than the women’s field hockey budget, purely based on the fact that college football brings in the college more money. The budget within the sport would then be split up by which athletes actually play and bring forth revenue for the school. So for example, all the starters, offense and defense, would be paid the same, but more than say the second and third string players. I would also like there to be sponsorships, would could also take the blunt of paying athletes off of the college, and place it on certain companies.

            The stakeholder I would like to target for P2 would be the NCAA first. They are the governing body that outlaws paying athletes in general. If I was able to change their mind on the topic of paying athletes, then the universities would most likely also be willing if it could fit into their school budget. This issue is exigent for the NCAA because the student athletes bring in the revenue for the NCAA, and without them they wouldn’t be pulling the type of revenue that they do now. Without keeping these men and women happy, they wouldn’t have any money. The NCAA is a logical audience for my proposal because they are the governing body of all college sports, and if they were on board we could make a major change within college athletics.