IMRaD Report: Should College Athletes be Paid

Abstract

For years there has been an ongoing debate between the NCAA and College Athletes over whether or not the players should receive a salary for their play. One side that is always left out of the argument is how the general population of college students would react to athletes at their schools receiving salaries. A study was conducted at the University of Louisville to examine how the students felt about paying their college athletes. A total of 40 students filled out this survey. To keep results relevant the participants included 20 male students (10 of which were athletes) and 20 female students (10 of which were athletes). The study confirmed that nearly all of the athletes believed they deserved a salary. It was also concluded that the male population on a college campus were much more open to paying players than the female population. The NCAA should hold surveys like this one nation wide at all the Division I sports schools to assist them in making a decision of whether they should begin paying collegiate athletes or not.

Introduction

Research has been done over the years by professionals in the sports field as well as by NCAA representatives. There has definitely been evidence that the NCAA and certain sports professionals have considered paying college athletes. The problem is, they are not looking at the big picture. Both sides of the argument have numerous reasons that support why their claim is correct. For example people on the side of not paying college athletes may say: They are going to school for free (free degrees), room and board is covered, athletes have the opportunity to be drafted, and that the players are still amateurs. On the flip side, those who think athletes should be paid plead their case based on these arguments: Athletes have no time in their schedules to get jobs and make additional money, it is unethical for the NCAA to make money on their name and image without players seeing any of that money, Coaches at the collegiate level make, in some cases, more money than their professional counterparts, and Collegiate sport is a business where the players make up a large majority of the “employees”.

Some will try to argue that non-athletes at college would be offended if the athletes were paid. However there has never actually been a nationwide study conducted to see if this is true. In any given situation there will be two sides. Some people will be opposed to the idea but that does not mean that they are necessarily a majority or correct. In a lot of arguments there isn’t a definitve right or wrong answer, decisions have to be made based on what will be best for the majority not the few. A nationwide study to see how students feel about paying their athletes would give a much different outlook on the whole situation for both the athletes and the NCAA. It is a necessary side of this argument that has been collectively neglected thus far.

Method

Participants:

This study was conducted through a survey. 40 students at the University of Louisville took the survey. The age ranged from freshman to seniors at the school and diversity varied as well amongst the participants. The groups were separated into 20 males and 20 females to keep the results consistent. Within each group were sub groups that were divided into athletes and non-athletes. There were 10 athletes and 10 non-athletes within the male and female groups.

Procedures:

The students were each given a short survey made up of 8 questions. These questions were made to gain a better understanding of why students thought athletes should or shouldn’t be paid. Some questions required participants to think critically about their side of the argument and even offered some alternative ways to pay the athletes in an attempt to direct the main idea of this survey to the salary itself. For example one question asked students if they would feel better about paying athletes if they were to receive smaller salaries of $10,000-20,000 a year (almost like a stipend). It was aimed to reassure students that the athletes would not be making millions of dollars a year like professionals. If the salary was more of a stipend the NCAA would be able to uphold their argument that the players are still amateurs.

Data Analysis:

The survey was anonymous so students did not have to worry about their answers being shared. This was important because students would feel more inclined to answer honestly if they knew nobody would be sure of exactly who was giving which answer. The survey results were put into a number of tables, charts, and graphs to represent how students felt about paying college athletes and why they felt this way.

Results

Graph 1 shows what was found in the different participant groups. Out of the 20 males that were interviewed a total of 17 said that they believed college athletes should be paid. All 10 of the athletes voted yes to getting paid and 7 of the 10 non-athletes agreed that the athletes should receive some sort of salary. The female results greatly differed from that of the men. Of the 20 females surveyed a total of 10 said that they believed athletes should be paid. Again the athletes were in the majority, 8 of the 10 female athletes said that they should receive a salary where only 2 of the 10 female non-athletes believed the players should get paid. It is clear that men feel much more strongly at this University about paying the athletes than the women do. It would be interesting to conduct a separate survey to figure out why this is. However of the 40 students surveyed at this school 27 agreed that athletes should receive some sort of compensation for their play.

Graph 1: Should College Athletes Be Paid

One area of study that is not represented on this graph comes from a specific question on the survey. The question read “Do you think it is right for the NCAA to make a profit on a players name, likeness, and image without the players seeing any of that money?”. Interestingly enough 39 of the 40 participants answered no to this question. It is very obvious that this seems unethical to both athletes and non-athletes. Even though players sign contracts that give away the rights to their names and images it is clear that this deserves further investigation and something should change in the future.

Discussion

The most important element of this current study is that a majority of college students believe that athletes should be getting paid. It is not all athletes either. As displayed by the data, non-athletes also argue that the players deserve some form of compensation for their work. The data shows that both male and female athletes strongly believe they should be paid. The only gap comes in the male and female non-athletes. Only 2 of the 10 female non-athletes said the players should be paid opposed to 7 of the 10 men. Further research should be conducted to try and explain why this is. This research should be continued and carried out in greater detail. It would be interesting to compare the survey results of the 40 students to that of the entire university. It would also be interesting to see if the trends continued nation wide at other schools and if there were other notable trends that appeared in certain regions of the country. A large side of the argument against paying athletes is people believe that the non-athletes on college campuses would be offended if the athletes were receiving a salary on top of their scholarships. The results of this survey suggest that this may not be the case. Taking this survey to the national scale would be very useful in further research on this subject. It could show the NCAA that changes may need to be made to take arguments in another direction and that there is a whole other unexplored side to the “Pay for Play” argument.

Survey

1. Are you a male or female?

           

            Male

            Female

2. Are you an athlete or non-athlete?

           

            Athlete

            Non-Athlete

3. Do you have a friend/ know somebody that plays a division 1 college sport?

           

            Yes

            No

4.  Do you think college athletes should be paid?

            Yes

            No

5. In one or two sentences describe why you think this.

6.  Do you think it is right for the NCAA to make a profit on a player’s name, image, and likeness without the player seeing any of that money?

            Yes

            No

7. If college athletes were to receive smaller salaries of $10,000-$20,000 a year rather than million dollar professional contracts I would feel better about them getting paid.

            Strongly Agree

            Agree

            Strongly Disagree

            Disagree

8. College athletes have a harder time finding time in their schedule to get a job than non-athletes.

            Strongly Agree

            Agree

            Strongly Disagree

            Disagree