The problem is that college athletes mainly dominate Division 1 basketball of football player are being poorly compensated for their services. For this post I will look at this situation from a business perspective. For this example I will be using the revenues and expenses of the 2011-2012 season from The Ohio State football program.
The current thinking is that athletes are fairly compensated. Athletes are required to put in approximately 50-60 hours in-season and -15-25 hours out of season; this is a year round time commitment with only a few weeks off in the entire year. In return for their services these athletes receive grant-in-aid (scholarship) for tuition, room, board, and books.
From the website http://businessofcollegesports.com/tag/ohio-state-university/ there is a chart showing the revenues and expenses of The Ohio State football program. The football program generated $ 48.7 million in revenue. With a number of different expenses the program also had $13 million in expenses. This left a profit of $35.7 million. The largest expense of $3.7 million is A & P which accounts for the yearly salaries for the coaches. There are three expenses that go directly to the football players which are meals $0.46 million, lodging $0.22 million, and grant-in-aid of $3.4 altogether totaling approximately $4.1 million. I must also mention the $3.4 million in grant-in-aid is paid right back to the University. Using these numbers of the $48.7 million dollars of revenue generated 8.4% goes back to the athletes and of that 8.4%, 82.9% of that goes right back to the University as the price of tuition room, board, and books.
The current thinking is that athletes are being fairly compensated, but from the information that I just showed I think it presents the argument that these athletes are not being fairly compensated. These athletes only receive 8.4% of the $ 48.7 million in revenue, and 82.9% of that goes right back to the University. Also these athletes are not considered employees and therefore cannot receive workers compensation for their injuries after their time at the college.
This information seems to be pretty reliable. I wouldn’t think that this website would just make up numbers for the revenues and expenses. I checked other sources and found that the revenues for The Ohio State football team for the 2011-2012 season were constantly around 50 million.
Source – http://businessofcollegesports.com/tag/ohio-state-university/
Dilemmas... 