Espn Fab Five Special Reminds Us Why College Athletes Should Be Paid

ESPN Fab Five Special Reminds Us Why College Athletes Should Be Paid

In the NCAA there was an era in which 5 freshmen took their team, University at Michigan, to the NCAA Championship. During that time it was said that revenues and sales for the University rose several millions of dollars because of the fab five freshmen. Also many sports apparel merchandisers benefitted off of these young college students and their talent. It appears that everyone involved in this era benefitted financially except the actual players who were displaying their talents. These students who were usually African American from lower class families did not receive any financial compensation for their efforts on the court and neither did their families. Is it ethical that these students work as hard as the professionals but do not get compensated? These students sometimes even have to change their major just to keep up with their practice schedule. Is it right that these students can’t accept any help from any sort of outsiders financially?

Using the Blanchard/ Peale Method we can analyze this situation to see if it is ethical. First question of this method is “Is it Legal?” Yes it is legal to not compensate the college players. Actually it is illegal to compensate the college players. We now know that the action is legal, but that does not make it ethical. We are not answering a negative to the first question, but in this test all we need is to answer one of the questions with a negative to prove it is unethical.

Is it balanced is the second question. This requires the enforcer to take a step back and view the issue from others point of view. Looking at this issue from the school’s point of view, they might say that this is ethical and it’s the only fair way to go for all the players involved. I believe they would say this only because they don’t want to have to share the benefits if they don’t have to. From the player’s point of view, I can see how this is not fair at all. Some of...