The National Collegiate Athletic Association(NCAA) is one of the biggest associations in the world without a doubt. The non-profit organization, manages 98 athletic conferences that house approximately 1,123 colleges and universities. From these 1,123 colleges and universities, there are almost half a million student athletes. In recent years a topic of discussion regarding student athletes and the NCAA has been, Should student athletes get paid for playing collegiate sports? Some people argue that student athletes should get paid seeing that they devote just about all of their
The NCAA generates an estimated $1 billion per year. |
De La Haye (pictured) created his YouTube channel back in 2015. |
Stakeholders
UCF has received backlash for removing De La Haye from the football team. |
Individualism
Individualism states that "business actions should maximize profits for owners of a business, but do this within the law" (Salazar, 17.) Not only do they need to maximize profits within the law, they must respect human rights as well. This is exactly what the NCAA is doing. They are maximizing profits for the owners within the law. Legally speaking, the NCAA is not required to pay student athletes for performance. Although you could argue that the NCAA isn't respecting the human rights of the student athlete's and should be paying the student athletes, they aren't required to. Not by the law, and not by the set of rules that the NCAA had created. So the NCAA is following the Individualism theory perfectly, as the NCAA does not pay the student athletes to play, they don't pay for the student's scholarships, and they don't pay for any of the equipment or apparel that is given to the athletes. From De La Haye's standpoint, athletes aren't being paid for their service to the NCAA, and their right to minimum wage. It's a hard conversation because it becomes not a legal conversation to pay the student athlete's, it's a ethical conversation.
A comic published in the Huffington Post references what student athlete's cannot receive vs. what they do receive. |
Utilitarianism
In the comic pictured to the right, it shows two college athletes who are pulling a car, that is owned by the NCAA. In the conversation between the athletes, one says "No money, No gifts, No cars, No endorsement deals, Tell me again, why are we doing this?" and the other responds with "For an education, but I'm not feeling too smart" This comic references what collegiate athletes are not eligible to receive, and what they do receive as a student athlete. With the conversation in the comic, the athletes are not happy with what they can't receive, and what they do receive isn't enough. Utilitarianism states that "the business actions should aim to maximize the happiness in the long run for all conscious beings that are affected by the business action." So in this case in a perfect world, De La Haye would be able to make his YouTube videos, and receive the money from the advertisements while playing football at the University of Central Florida, making money for the NCAA. But this is not a perfect world, and that scenario cannot exist. De La Haye isn't happy in this controversy, he feels singled out, and thinks that there are bigger things that NCAA should worry about. A quote from one of his videos, says "You have some NCAA athlete's out here smoking weed, beating women, only getting a slap on the wrist with one game suspensions, and here I am being ruled ineligible for making YouTube videos, and pursuing my career." Under utilitarianism, this controversy would be unethical, with De La Haye who is affected being unhappy.
Kantianism
Kantianism asks that we treat people with respect and treat them as equally capable of living an autonomous life. Simplified, it means to treat people right, and do the right thing. The NCAA does not seem to be following this. With the De La Haye controversy, the NCAA is restricting his freedom, not allowing De La Haye to make money of future videos that involved football, the NCAA, and UCF makes sense, and made sense to De La Haye, but it was telling De La Haye, that if he kept his channel, and wanted to play football that he would have to donate his previously earned money to a charity of his choosing. This was the part that didn't make sense. De La Haye said "I worked hard for this money, and now I can't keep it?" After doing a little research on how much a YouTuber makes, with De La Haye's views and subscriber count, it's estimated he had generated around ten thousand dollars from his videos. The NCAA, generates over a billion dollars a year, is concerned with ten thousand dollars. De La Haye was also quoted saying, "They make millions of my name, but I can't make a few thousand off of mine?" Which a lot of people who commented on De La Haye's videos seemed to agree with. De La Haye also claims that the NCAA, and his coaching staff at UCF seemed to be against him throughout the whole process, and it didn't seem like anyone had his back. If these claims are accurate, and the NCAA and UCF were not being respectful during this process, that would be considered unethical using the Kantianism Theory.
De La Haye (pictured) will not play again at UCF. |
The Virtue Theory states that "Character traits that promote wellness or flourishing of individuals within a society." Personally, I think that the NCAA is a greedy company, that wouldn't promote wellness to any individual within a society unless it had money attached to it. I also believe that the NCAA doesn't seem to care much about it's student athletes as much as they claim. They don't care whether you go to school for one year and go pro, or if you stay for four years, and receive your degree. They just care about the dollar signs, and how much of those dollar signs they're bringing in off of the players. To promote wellness, would ensure that the student athletes are happy, which for a lot of those athletes would be a pay wage for the amount of blood, sweat, and tears that these student athletes put in for their respected schools. Ultimately, I think that the NCAA should look at what they're doing from an ethical standpoint and ask themselves if everything they're doing is ethically and morally right.
Works Cited
1.) “Deestroying.” YouTube, YouTube, www.youtube.com/channel/UC4mLlRa_dezwvytudo9s1sw.
2.) “NCAA rules UCF kicker ineligible for monetizing videos.” SI.com, www.si.com/college- football/2017/07/31/ucf-kicker-donald-de-la-haye-ineligible-ncaa-youtube-videos.
3.) “Search NCAA.Org.” NCAA.org - The Official Site of the NCAA,
www.ncaa.org/gsearch/ncaa%20constitution%20bylaws.
4.) Vcortez. “What is the NCAA?” NCAA.org - The Official Site of the NCAA, 19 Sept. 2017, www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/ncaa-101/what-ncaa.
5.) Wolken, Dan. “UCF kicker controversy wouldn't happen if NCAA gave athletes the rights they deserve.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 1 Aug. 2017, www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/columnist/dan-wolken/2017/08/01/ucf-kicker-and-youtube-videos-ncaa-again-plays-villain/530965001/.
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