If you narrow it down to a single sport you will find the coaches are in a better position then the players. Of the 122 FBS (football bowl subdivision) coaches the median pay is $2.7 million dollars and more than 40 college basketball coaches get paid 1 million dollars annually or more. In the US the average salary is 56,000 dollars which is 1/20 of what these coaches make. While these coaches are making millions the players are making very little money if any and if they get injured they must rely on their academics. These players are putting their bodies at risk and do high intensity labor just for their academics while coaches do no risky work on the sidelines and get paid very well. While some might argue that these athletes are getting paid via their scholarship they have to exchange the high risk of injury and lots of labor and training just to get their scholarship which on average does not cover their full education. The best coach in college football Nick Saban gets paid an outrageous amount of money $10.5 MILLION DOLLARS while the best players in all of college football get paid nothing with the risk of getting injured and losing everything they earned. This reason on its own should be enough, but there are even more outrageous examples of colleges and universities making money off of athletes.

    Universities are making millions off of student athletes. Yet, these athletes are not even getting a penny while making millions for these colleges. The players get a scholarship from a D1 school in order to play there and get a good education. The argument is that the opportunity that is provided is an equal and fair trade with the school; however, these universities end up making an absurd amount of money from their programs. According to Forbes Zion doubled viewership rates of an already highly ranked and watched team, doubled the number of ticket sales for their games, and doubled Jersey sales of any player in the last decade. I think this shows the true star he was to Duke but he didn’t make one penny and multiple millions of dollars went to Duke. In one week of the March madness tournament it was said $156,000 of Zion jerseys were sold. Forbes said in an article from 2019 about Zion Williamson:

”Tickets for Duke road game went up almost 200% and it was not due to a Coach K farewell tour.”

This quote means so much because the Duke Blue Devils men's basketball team was one of the biggest programs already, and the fact that one player Zion Williamson came in and drove sales up 200% is crazy. He was doing crazy work for Duke and getting 0% of the profits. While I do not believe that the players should get a fixed salary or straight up money, I do believe that they should be given a certain amount based on how much sales they bring in and how much attention they get. With this money they could be a little more secure if their career drifts away from a sport.

    Playing a D1 sport does not set college athletes up for their lifetime. Like I said earlier only 2% make it to the professional level and only 69% graduate college. This means the rest have to make a living not in sports and with no degree. These college athletes usually have very little money and any money could help that they could earn in college while playing their sport. In these physically demanding sports there is a decent amount of injuries and other health problems. If you work through college playing your sport expecting to go pro then get injured it changes your future. If they got their fair amount of money from the college then they could have a stronger backup plan and overall be more successful after leaving college.

    These college athletes deserve more than they get. While coaches and universities are making millions of dollars from these sports the athletes get none. They are sacrificing their bodies and time to make money for other people just so they can go to college. They deserve more from these colleges and sports programs that profit off of them. I am not suggesting that the athletes should sign for a fixed amount of money because then they could just be playing for money, but I do suggest that they should get paid based on how much the colleges are profiting off of them. Just a small percentage of that profit could still do very good to these athletes.

It’s not an opinion, this is robbery.