Blog Post 7

     I believe colleges should not pay their athletes. In the debate video "Should College Athletes be Paid?" Christine Brennan talks about the Title 9 law which states you have to treat men and women athletes the same. So if you pay one sport, you'll have to pay all of them. This is a strong argument because it is a law, and colleges would get in serious trouble if they broke it. A potential weakness in this argument is that colleges could easily cut sports, or pay their players a low wage. 

Another point is that most colleges in America don't make profits from their athletics. According to the video, in 2012 only 23/228 division 1 schools made a profit from their sports. These are proven statistics, however this data is a little outdated. 

Students are going to college to get an education, so education should be the main focus. If you start paying the students it will take the attention away from their school work. The weakness with this argument is that it is assuming every students intentions. There are students who are going to college to play sports, and aren't focused on school, so we can't speak for them. 

In the article "The Myth of the Sports Scholarship" we learned that college coaches can be sketchy. They don't like to give a straight answer, and are trying to give out as little money as possible. They could do the same thing if they started paying student athletes. They might want to keep more money for themselves. This argument is very weak because it's all hypothesis. None of it can be proven. 

The greatest piece of evidence supporting the other side is that if an athlete is injured, they don't have the money to pay for it. It's a strong argument because it is known that lots of people are hurt playing sports. We also know healthcare in America is very expensive, and most people don't have the money to cover a sudden injury. Getting paid for playing sports could help cover an injury if one happened.