I would like to narrow down my research paper to whether college athletes should get paid and talk about the state of California being the first to allow this, even though it does not go into effect until 2023. I will look in to see if other states are willing to follow in the footsteps of California. If so why or why not. A common argument for not getting paid is that these athletes are putting everything of theirs on the line - their physical health, mental health, their future careers (if sports does work out), and lastly, their time. With this also comes the question of should they get paid for commercials/ brand deal at least since it is essentially face and their brand. Can college pay athletes for one and not the other? The other argument is that when it comes down to it, college is a place for education and many times, these high ranked athletes are going and getting degrees at the major universities for free. Is that not enough to count as a salary?
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/30/765700141/california-governor-signs-bill-allowing-college-athletes-to-profit-from-endorsem
This is the article about California signing the bill to start paying college athletes as of 2023. This law will allow NCAA players to accept compensation for advertisements with their names on it.
Bush J. Student or Professional Athlete - Tax Implications in the United States if College Athletes Were to be Classified as Paid Employees. Labor Law Journal. 2017;68(1):58-63. http://search.proquest.com/docview/1877752355/
This is also an interesting article that we looked at in class. It talks about the similarities and differences between college and professional athletes It talks about the economic value of a free education, which many highly-ranked athletes are given. Another interesting topic they discuss is the idea of a union for the athletes, due to their belief that their labor requires additional compensation due to the hundreds of millions of dollars they bring in to the university.
"While those student-athletes who have challenged their current status as non-employees have a number of benefits they are trying to obtain if they were to be classified as employees, one of the biggest potential downsides of being classified as an employee is the tax status of their athletic scholarships. "
I think this is a very interesting quote about how scholarships are only nontaxable as long as they are not more than the cost of tuition and how in some cases athletes can, in fact, be better off not being paid.
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/30/765700141/california-governor-signs-bill-allowing-college-athletes-to-profit-from-endorsem
This is the article about California signing the bill to start paying college athletes as of 2023. This law will allow NCAA players to accept compensation for advertisements with their names on it.
Bush J. Student or Professional Athlete - Tax Implications in the United States if College Athletes Were to be Classified as Paid Employees. Labor Law Journal. 2017;68(1):58-63. http://search.proquest.com/docview/1877752355/
This is also an interesting article that we looked at in class. It talks about the similarities and differences between college and professional athletes It talks about the economic value of a free education, which many highly-ranked athletes are given. Another interesting topic they discuss is the idea of a union for the athletes, due to their belief that their labor requires additional compensation due to the hundreds of millions of dollars they bring in to the university.
"While those student-athletes who have challenged their current status as non-employees have a number of benefits they are trying to obtain if they were to be classified as employees, one of the biggest potential downsides of being classified as an employee is the tax status of their athletic scholarships. "
I think this is a very interesting quote about how scholarships are only nontaxable as long as they are not more than the cost of tuition and how in some cases athletes can, in fact, be better off not being paid.
I think they'd only be better off not being paid if they earned less than their scholarships....
ReplyDeleteBecause so many students this semester are writing about sports, I watched some of the HBO documentary "Student Athlete" -- which is very worth checking out, by the way. The thing that the film brings home is that most of these athletes are African American or other minorities from poor families (some VERY poor) who are sometimes even homeless or borderline homeless, yet NCAA rules not only don't allow them to be paid but prevent them from receiving any financial assistance -- including just money for rent (as featured in the story of one athlete they profile). Meanwhile, the coach is making millions, the assistant coaches are very well paid, some of the schools are raking in the bucks, and lots of other people are getting rich off of college sports, while affluent college students have fun watching them on Saturdays. It is easy to make analogies to slavery: Taylor Branch says the whole system has the "whiff of the plantation," and D. Stanley Eitzen wrote an article working out that analogy over 20 years ago in USA Today titled The Slaves of Big Time College Sports (shortly after Andrew Zimbalist's Unpaid Professionals was published). The rules governing college sports are so rigid, it looks like the old Jim Crow laws or the Fugitive Slave laws.
And there is so much pressure on these kids -- especially competitive pressures that make them push themselves beyond their limits to battle for those very few professional slots.
The fact that so few will ever play professionally really gets you thinking about how important it is that they actually get a college education out of the deal. Two books on that topic:
1) The Miseducation of the Student Athlete: How to Fix College Sports by Kenneth L. Shropshire (Wharton 2017)
It is not available at the RU libraries, but you can have them order it.
2) Cheated : The UNC Scandal, the Education of Athletes, and the Future of Big-Time College Sports by Jay M. Smith and Mary Willingham, which the library has available online:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rutgers-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1975019
That might make an interesting topic.
But, sticking to paying college athletes, I recommend getting the Joe Nocera book:
Deletehttps://www.amazon.com/Indentured-Battle-Exploitation-College-Athletes/dp/0143130552/
That also could be ordered through the RU libraries -- or check your parents' local library next time you are home. Or you can get it used from Amazon.