Opinion: Should college players be compensated?

College football have always had controversy. One of the major topics in college football and college sports in general is should the players have compensation and be paid for their play on the field? This topic has been talked about in many ways.

The NCAA doesn’t want players to be paid because they lose business over it. However, players and even players who have left college to go play professionally are arguing that players should be paid for their play and it isn’t fair that they make no money and the NCAA makes all the money from their name. The players also argue that if the NCAA doesn’t give them money then they should be able to make money on the side to pay for living expenses; this however isn’t allowed by the NCAA and they player could lose their eligibility and scholarship for the given sport.

Players should be compensated and be allowed to make money off of their own name and talents. One recent example is when a DI college football player lost his scholarship and eligibility to play football all because he was making money off his YouTube channel. Donald De La Haye was given a DI scholarship to the University of Central Florida and was playing for the team as the kicker. He then was told that he can’t make money off his YouTube channel and cannot do anything football related in the channel.

He was then told that he will either stop the videos or lose eligibility for sports and will have to be pay for his tuition. He then was told he lost his scholarship just because he was trying to better his life for himself and his family. This shows just how idiotic this rule is and should allow the players to make some money instead of nothing.

One school that benefited from this rule was UCLA. UCLA is a very big school but they weren’t really known for sports and weren’t considered a powerhouse school in sports. That changed when a now professional basketball player went to the school and made the school relevant again.

Lonzo Ball, a name that is widely known in UCLA and Los Angeles, played for UCLA this past year and was put on all the UCLA merchandise this past year. He was the reason that UCLA made so much money; they sold jerseys of his name, posters, tickets, and etc. had him on it.

The crazy thing is that his name and skill made UCLA a lot of money and he did not get a single cent. This isn’t right and he should have gotten a cut of all that money because it’s his name and skill that made that money and all UCLA did was rack up that money and kept going till he left.

You can ask a lot of college athletes and former college athletes to talk about their living conditions during their college career and a lot would say that they sometimes didn’t even eat because they had no money. This rule makes it really hard for those athletes that aren’t financially stable to live comfortably. The worse thing is that these players can’t make money off these skills and talents because they run the risk of losing their scholarships. This isn’t right and the NCAA shouldn’t be allowed to do this.

There isn’t really any reason the NCAA should be doing this and the only reason they don’t want to pay the players is because they want to make more money off of them. They know that they have the platform that all players need to make it professionally and use it to make a fortune. Their greed doesn’t allow them to give compensation to the players and doesn’t want to allow the player to make money on the side.

Players and graduated players should fight the NCAA to make better conditions for the players and give them fair payment for their talents. They should do this because without the players the NCAA would not be this huge organization that it is today.