Paying College Athletes for Name Image and Likenesses

Big time college sports dodged a bullet but did it hit high schools?

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Should college athletes be paid? That’s been the central question surrounding the NCAA for decades. But the question is vague and can’t be answered without some clarity.

In general, the term “college athletes” refers to all student-athletes, but advocates for paying college players aren’t referring to all student-athletes. “Paying college athletes” refers to paying the male athletes in revenue-generating sports, i.e., big-time college football and basketball featured on major television networks. (That’s less than 10 percent of all student-athletes.)

It’s easy to see the initial problem here.

The majority of student-athletes were never considered in this payment plan. Now, suppose all the athletes were paid for participating in sports. Does anyone actually believe women athletes would receive the same amount as men? In theory, the male athlete receives a scholarship and the female athlete receives a scholarship creating parity between the sexes, but if the athletes were paid, the inequities would lead to major lawsuits.

Now, the term “paid” means: To give money that is due for work done, but college sports were always classified as amateur…