Controversy in Sport Management Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Controversy in Sport Management - Assignment Example student has the skills to play for a team in division me then the student should receive a scholarship to go to that school free, or for however much the scholarship costs. The National College Athletic Association believes offering free scholarships is payment enough for the student athletes, and should suffice for the players offering their services to generate revenue for their school. The school provides free education to these student athletes and offers the first recruiting platform for professional sports like the National Football League (NFL) and National Basketball Association (NBA) (Hawkins, 2010). Even with all of this, there is no way the National College Athletic Association can put up a big fight contrary to paying its student athletes if football and basketball are the only sports played in college. Division I football and basketball produce most of the revenue numbers and are the only sports that are profitable. It is difficult to allow a football and basketball player to receive payment but it is tougher for all other sports; including division II and III to get on the pay list (Zimbalist, 2006). On the contrary, players have just as much reason to think they need payment. The National College Athletic Association division I football generates about 12 billion dollars internationally in a year. This is like taking the top films of the last 10 years, combining them, and not paying the movie stars even a single penny. The National College Athletic Association basketball March Madness competition makes $760 million (Hawkins, 2010). Most of the players argue that they are more than just student athletes are. Watch ESPN a television program on Tuesday night and one can see that a basketball team from California is playing in Florida. Hockey teams from Alaska travel to away events for two weekends in a row without resting. They depart on a Tuesday and return on a Sunday the following week. Travelling and playing makes these student athletes to miss