{"id":18015,"date":"2019-09-24T01:07:11","date_gmt":"2019-09-24T01:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=18015"},"modified":"2019-09-25T04:52:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-25T04:52:00","slug":"what-if-college-athletes-got-paid-3-questions-answered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/what-if-college-athletes-got-paid-3-questions-answered\/","title":{"rendered":"What if college athletes got paid? 3 questions answered"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jasmine Harris<\/a>, Ursinus College<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The California state legislature has approved a bill that allows college athletes to earn money through athletic endorsements starting in 2023. The governor hasn\u2019t said whether he\u2019ll sign the bill into law. Jasmine Harris, an expert on student athletes<\/a>, addresses how the bill, known as \u201cFair Pay to Play Act<\/a>,\u201d would alter college athletics if it gets signed into law. Her edited comments are below.<\/em><\/p>\n

1. The Fair Pay to Play Act mentions preventing the exploitation of student athletes. Just how are student athletes being exploited?<\/h2>\n

College athletics has become such a business that the exploitation is happening on multiple levels. It\u2019s not just that the colleges are making money off of the student athlete.<\/p>\n

Players are also prevented from generating any kind of compensation around their image or likeness while they\u2019re in college, which \u2013 for many of them \u2013 is going to be the only time when their likeness or their image has any economic value at all.<\/p>\n

Right now less than 2%<\/a> of players end up going pro. And so you\u2019ve got this entire industry that\u2019s built on generating revenue off the athlete through ticket sales, sponsorship deals<\/a> with apparel companies, and TV distribution deals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But that money \u2013 instead of being allocated back to the students or making changes that allow additional compensation to be accumulated by the students \u2013 goes to things such as coaches\u2019 salaries<\/a> and new dorms and updated locker rooms with personal barbers and locker seats that roll out into beds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s enough to make me wonder whether these students are going to be sleeping in the locker rooms because they\u2019re spending so much time in the stadium as opposed to in their own dorms or classrooms.<\/p>\n