College Students' Perceptions On The Payment Of Intercollegiate Student-Athletes - Statistical Data Included

College Student Journal, June, 2001 by Raymond G. Schneider

Just as there are many supporters of payment to college athletes the issue has many opponents. Commonly placed arguments against payment include: Student-athletes receive adequate pay in the form of an athletic scholarship (Baker, 1996: Beauchamp, 1996; DeShazier, 2000; Dooley, 1995; Gerdy, 1995; Mott, 1994; Wolff, 1994); The current financial status of most, if not all, athletic departments prohibits any additional financial outlays such as payment (Benner, 1994; Blum, 1994; Bradley, 1994; Looney, 1996; Thompson, 1995); Payment to student-athletes would require the NCAA to lose its current nonprofit status (Bradley, 1994: Fish. 1997; Rushin. 1997) and Title IX bylaws would require payment to all athletes making total payments unachievable (Benner, 1994: Isenberg, 1994: Mott, 1994: Rushin. 1997).

While popular and professional literature has debated this issue frequently, Schneider (2000) found that little attempt has been made to ascertain the opinions of the individuals associated with this controversy and called for additional research in this area. While little research had been conducted to determine student-athletes perceptions on this issue, no research had focused tin the perceptions of college students' and their support or opposition of payment to college student-athletes beyond and athletic scholarship.

Mangan (1994) noted that the rising costs of athletic programs are being passed on to college students in the form of increasing tuition and fees. According to the NCAA, student fees (that did not pay for athletic tickets) provided an average of 3% of an athletics department's revenues in 1989. That number grew to 6% in just three years and is expected to continue to further increase yearly (Mangan, 1994). Such a reliance on student fees to support athletic programs only underscores the need to determine whether college students would support paying student-athletes. Furthermore, Levine and Cureton (1998) reported that the two principal issues of student unrest over the past two years included the rising costs of college and multiculturalism. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the opinions of college students' regarding payment, in addition to an athletic scholarship, to intercollegiate student-athletes. Specifically, the following research questions were addressed: (a) Do college students' support payment of student-athletes? (b) What arguments do college students' advance to support their opinions? and (c) Where do college students believe revenue should come from, if student-athletes were to be paid?

Method

The present investigation was a part of a larger research agenda examining perceptions of direct cash payments to intercollegiate student-athletes.

Subjects

The population for this study was college students from a premier Division I athletics conference. The conference was comprised of universities that displayed the characteristics of corporate athleticism including lavish, revenue-generating stadia, high salaries for coaches and administrators, frequent television appearances and high ticket sales. Student directories were obtained from each of the universities in the selected conference and the directories were used to randomly select 2,000 college students.