College Sports Are Today s World - 1341 Words

College sports are everywhere in today’s world. Turn on ESPN and you will be surrounded hearing about Jay Bilas’ final four predictions or possibly Jon Gruden’s Heisman candidates. College sports have turned into a multi-billion dollar industry with consistent growth. Despite of the fast growing business, the NCAA remains non-profit and labels the players â€Å"student-athletes† to mark them amateur. With this label, athletes are recognized as student first and athlete second. Scholastics are supposed to be prioritized over athletics, however with the growing industry the lines are being blurred. The NCAA is considered to be an amateur league, however, groups of people are pushing for players to become paid due to the high revenue. While one†¦show more content†¦Ed O’Bannon, a previous UCLA basketball player filed a case looking to sue the NCAA for licensing players without consent. The NCAA marks their players as amateurs, therefore, they do not allow paying players. However after the ruling, the NCAA was found to be violating antitrust laws, which could potentially change the model of the system (Maese). Judge Claudia Wilken ruled an injunction that schools in the NCAA would be allowed to provide players a trust fund in order to compensate players for using their names in broadcasting, merchandise or imaging. In 2016, this trust fund will allow universities to conduct bidding wars for future recruits (Strauss, Tracy). This of course, would be able to be capped at a certain mark and would not be payable until after the departure of a student athlete’s time at a college or the end of their eligibility (Berkowitz) This court case could potentially change the way college sports are run. Marc Edelman, a writer for forbes.com, argues his point in â€Å"21 Reasons Why Student-Athletes Are Employees And Should Be Allowed To Unionize† is for the movement to pay players. Edelman focuses his point on NCAA programs being large revenue businesses and in his opinion should consider student-athletes as employees. With this, he explains that student-athletes have to work an average of 43.3 hours a week and oftentimes forced to miss class due to NCAA playoff scheduling (Edelman). Edelman goes on to compare