College sports have grown exponentially over the past decade, and deserve the positive and negative attention that has come with it. The NCAA has made college sports a marketing goldmine and does their best to exploit each sport in ways that will create the most revenue. The NCAA does not however, allow any of the athletes to be paid no matter the sport. College athletes should not be paid because of the fact that they are not employees. College athletes make their own decision to play a sport at their college or university along with going to class and getting an education. College athletes are students first and foremost, and people seem to forget that fact. Sometimes the only reason a student gets accepted to a reputably educational school is to play a sport. The accomplishment in that case would be that the student was able to get into such a school and receive a quality education while having an obligation to play a particular sport there. .
One of the most overlooked and wrongly advertised reasons why college athletes should not be paid is that colleges and universities do not have the money for it. College football is the most profitable of all the college sports, but most people do not understand what real "profit" is. The top 25 college football programs, based on football expenses and revenue, on average create about 25 million dollars in revenue per year. The top 25 is packed with schools like the University of Alabama, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Texas, Florida State, LSU you get the point. Overall, there are 127 D1 football programs, over 160 D2 programs, and almost 200 D3 programs in the United States. Outside of the top 25 D1 football programs, few schools would be able to pay so many student athletes the money that division 1 schools can offer. Most schools operate at a cost to the institution, and have no surplus of money at all. Some schools do not have contacts with multiple TV stations and radio stations and do not have the opportunity to make the type of money top 25 schools make.