The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has specific rules and regulations for the treating of the compensation for student athletes which basically comes down to the fact that while scholarships are allowed, and therefore athletes can receive free tuition, room, and board, they can't actually get paid to play sports. However, recently the NCAA has decided to permit monetary stipends to student athletes to cover the cost of typical auxiliary expenses a student would incur while living on campus. While these stipends are a step in the right direction, the lack of direct compensation for student athletes is inherently unfair in the big ticket sports of NCAA football and basketball because the labor the students provide by virtue of their playing these sports is essentially exploited by these colleges so that they can mint the lion's share of the revenues from these sports to the colleges itself and their staffing agents.
Currently, in the NCAA, there are eighty head coaches that make a minimum of $1,000,000 a year in the sport of collegiate football and that is just the head coach, himself, which includes none of his staff, none of his overall budget, none of auxiliary expenses or benefits that are covered by the college, and so forth. Apparently, these colleges believe that these coaches and their respective staffs are worth paying well in excess of millions of dollars a year, but the players of the sport, itself, the warriors of these games, are worthy of no direct compensation, whatsoever, except for basically the granting of scholarships which are subject to revocation at any time.
It is high time that the players of the game itself, which is both immensely popular with the viewing public as well as providing a consistently high revenue stream for these colleges, that these students are able to directly share in this wealth so generated. The compensation for the students does not necessarily have to come from the colleges, alone, and it doesn't necessarily have to be cash, itself, it can be a combination of both cash and benefits, or anything that makes sense for all parties involved. For instance, within most colleges there are certain alumnithat have demonstrated time and time again, that they are willing to step up to the plate and provide benefits for student athletes if only they are given the chance to do so. Let them have that chance.
In actual fact, it should be mandated that there be revenue sharing between the owners -- that is the colleges and the athletes of the sport, to which the athletes should be entitled to a minimum percentage of the revenues so generated, with also a cap that is implemented on the upside. This will therefore allow these colleges to properly budget their expenses to match their anticipated revenues and so forth, so as to give them a good idea as to how to allocate monies in regards to athletic compensation packages.
For those that believe that this will change the very nature of major collegiate sports, that somehow you are taking amateur athletes that are just playing for the love of the sport, or for the appreciation of getting a scholarship, and so forth, get over it. NCAA football and basketball are big business sports which should not be allowed to exploit student athletes without providing these same athletes the opportunity to monetize their skills.