What if college athletes get paid?

Northwestern University/Michael Barera-Wikimedia.commons

The death of the National Collegiate Athletic Association elite student-athlete is fast approaching. The unionization movement by the football players at Northwestern University could lead to athletes receiving a salary. If student-athletes are paid, the whole economic system of the NCAA will change.

If the football players get a salary and added benefits, there will be cutbacks in the resources in colleges that are not on the top of the NCAA. Title IX will play a role in this because all students will need to receive equal benefits from the unionization.

“How will schools pay for pay and benefits to scholarship student-athletes, Title IX considerations, workers’ compensation insurance and increased taxes due to loss of tax-exempt status,” Glenn Wong, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, said in a 2014 NYTimes.com article. “For 23 schools in Division I, it will be easy.”

All other Division I schools will have trouble financing pay for their athletes. These schools will have to reduce the coaches’ and administrators’ salaries, and remove programs for other students just to pay the players.

The NCAA spends less than ten percent of its resources on both Division II and III colleges, but this will fall lower if student-athletes get paid. Even if Division II or III athletes don’t get paid, budgets could still be decreased. If Division I athletes receive a salary, then more of the NCAA’s resources must be spent to compensate for everyone’s salary.

“If that changed, our budgets would change,” Kris Diaz, the athletic director at Division III Baldwin Wallace, said in a 2014 dispatch.com article.

The best of the best athletes will receive higher salaries and more benefits, including better medical care for injuries and compensation. These added perks will only go to scholarship players not the walk-on players.

“There is no question but that the presence of a union would add tension in terms of creating an ‘us' versus ‘them' feeling between the players it would represent and those it would not," Fox News quoted Northwestern’s 21 page document in a 2014 article.

Contributed by: Nicholas Bohan and Velid Mulic