Imagine the life of a legendary musician who sells out stadiums week after week but does not get compensated except for a college scholarship. Such is the reality for Johnny Manziel and all other great college athletes who play football and basketball and don’t get paid.
Manziel is the Heisman-winning quarterback for the Texas A&M Aggies and he doesn’t get paid. This season, when the Aggies hosted Alabama, the average re-sale ticket price was over $500. CBS had incredible ratings and made boatloads of money, but the players don’t get anything. If Manziel isn’t playing in that game, would the casual college football fan even watch it? Why would they want to? Without Manziel, Alabama would most likely have steamrolled the Aggies, ratings would have been far lower and ultimately, CBS, Texas A&M and the NCAA would have less money in their pockets.
On top of that, Manziel is a running quarterback. He puts his football future and his health on the line every single time he touches the ball. Everyone cashes in except him. Why shouldn’t he be allowed to cash in?
On any given Saturday, there are any number of players who get hurt. If they are down long enough, the television network cuts to a commercial. Advertisements aren’t cheap, and the television network gets paid, but guess what? The player who is suffering a career-affecting injury won’t be seeing any of that money.
In 2012, Marcus Lattimore, a University of South Carolina running back, suffered a gruesome knee injury that tore three of his knee ligaments to end his college career. Before that injury, Lattimore was a projected first round draft pick, which would have paid him somewhere between $1 million to $4 million per season for around five years. Instead he was a fourth round pick by the San Francisco 49ers. He signed a four year contract worth a total of $2.46 million.
You will have people who do not feel bad for him and say that $2.46 million is a lot of money, but for him, that’s completely unfair. He brought South Carolina back from the dead, and because of him, the team was able to play on national television almost every week. The broadcast money that these schools get is insane. $2.46 million might be a fair number if he had been paid fairly in college.
Lattimore left the field the day of his injury on a cart, crying. He wasn’t crying because of the physical pain; he was crying because he did not know if he would ever be able to get paid to play a sport in which he was so dominant. Players on both teams felt terrible for him, and almost every player from his team, as well as their opponent, big time rival, Tennessee, came over to wish him well. Lattimore is a man who worked hard everyday and stayed humble. The fact that top players could lose everything in a second is unbelievable. They put their body on the line and don’t get any of the hard earned money that they earned for the school.
College football and college basketball revenues pay for every non-revenue sports at most schools. No offense to cross country or softball, but how much money do those programs lose each year? Without football and basketball, these other sports simply wouldn’t be funded. Boosters who donate money to the school get credit for helping out the program, why shouldn’t the star football player?
On average, a college scholarship is worth roughly $100,000 over four years. Almost every single NFL starting quarterback makes more than that in one game. Some could argue that Johnny Manziel is worth more to television networks than some NFL quarterbacks. One thing that is so great about Johnny Manziel is the autograph scandal in which he apparently signed hundreds of autographs for a five digit sum. If you are found guilty of that, your college eligibility would be gone immediately; instead, Manziel got a slap on the wrist. Whether he is guilty or not, it would have cost the NCAA and school a ridiculous amount of money to suspend him. The NCAA acts like they’re doing a service, but in reality, they’re all about business.
When a player doesn’t get paid, the money doesn’t disappear; it goes in someone’s pocket. If you pay players, they probably won’t be in such a rush to go to the NFL or NBA and would be more likely to stay in school and get a degree. This is not to say that all college athletes should be paid; only certain college football and college basketball players should be. All players should be offered money out of high school if they’re good enough and be able to pick where they want to go to school. That way, the ones who deserve to be paid will get paid.