It’s become the hot topic in college sports, should student-athletes be paid? There are many different opinions and even more varying solutions to the question, but the pro-paying crowd seems to be growing louder and louder.
You can now add one of the greatest college athletes of all-time to the list of people who believe that these athletes deserve a cut of the revenue they are generating. UCLA legend and NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was doing an interview on CNN when the topic of paying athletes came up. As reported by Bleacher Report, the Captain believes student-athletes have earned their share of the pie.
“It’s a $6 billion a year industry. Last year, CBS and TBS split up $1 billion just off of March Madness,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “There’s so much money being made and the people who are creating this wealth do not get to participate and they don’t get to graduate.”
“The president of the NCAA makes $1.7 million a year,” Abdul-Jabbar continued. “Yet the people who are performing and generating this cash do not get to participate in any way.”
The artist formerly known as Lew Alcindor raises some great points. The fact that billions of dollars every year are generated by athletes who see no money in return is one of the more ridiculous traditions in sports. While there is the argument that these students receive scholarships and opportunity in return for their play, the fact remains that said scholarships really don’t cost these large Universities a thing.
This is a topic of conversation that will only continue to build steam in the future. With lawsuits being filed on behalf of athletes looking for compensation starting to trickle in, it looks like there is only a matter of time until major change comes to the college athletic system.
