Bringing a New Meaning to March Madness

Bringing a New Meaning to March Madness

Year after year stories come out about the many struggling NCAA players who cannot afford to buy the necessities of life. NCAA teams can even lose their chance to compete in a bowl games, just due to a few players signing autographs and receiving money. This is becoming a major issue, and needs to be addressed. The following passages from an article, Should NCAA Athletes Be Paid in the US News.

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The NCAA basketball tournaments, or "March Madness," have become a huge business. As Forbes' Chris Smith wrote, CBS and Turner Broadcasting make more than $1 billion off the games, "thanks in part to a $700,000 ad rate for a 30-second spot during the Final Four." Athletic conferences receive millions of dollars in payouts from the NCAA when their teams advance deep into the tournament. Ditto for the coaches of the final squads standing. The NCAA, as a whole, makes $6 billion annually.

I think this passage from the article Should NCAA Athletes Be Paid makes a good point, because the NCAA is making incredible amounts of money on the players, and in return, the players aren't receiving much. The NCAA gets very picky about players “unfairly” receiving benefits. Why are they so worried about players getting too much pasta at a pasta party when they are raking in 6 billion dollars a year? I think it is clear that NCAA athletes deserve to be paid, but an even harder question to answer is how the money would be distributed to the players, and if players in all sports would be paid.

But the players themselves don't see any of that money, even as they risk career-ending injuries every time that they step onto the court, field or rink. Just last weekend, Louisville's Kevin Ware suffered a gruesome broken leg.

This injury suffered by Kevin Ware was extremely gruesome, and health care bills could be through the roof. This brings up a good topic in showing the sacrifice the players make for their team, giving their body to the game day in and day out. How can he expect to pay for this, while his team just goes on without him.

A group of former players has filed an antitrust lawsuit alleging that student athletes are entitled to some of the money the NCAA makes off of using their names and likenesses on merchandise such as jerseys and video games.

This is an excellent point for the players who do not get paid. The teams and the NCAA are making money directly off their name on their jersey, yet the player receives nothing in return. In my opinion, this should not even be legal to do. Players could easily be paid a portion of money based on how many is made from their jerseys, and in many eyes, this would be a fair way to go about paying NCAA athletes who make money for their team.

Future research: I would like to next look into different ways for the system to be changed to help the players.