NCAA allows student athletes to benefit off their image

NCAA finally addressed the issue of not allowing student athletes to make profit off their name and image when, according to CNBC, top NCAA officials made a rule allowing athletes to do so.

The rule change comes after California passed a law permitting college athletes to make profit off of their name and image. While the NCAA rule is slightly different from the California rule in terms of what market they can sell to, the student athletes will still benefit greatly.

With this new policy, players will finally be able to make some cash off their talents.

For those who aren’t familiar with NCAA and collegiate sports, players in the past haven’t been able to profit off their name, image and likeness, while both the team and league made a ton of money. This is an issue because many players come from poor families, and while NCAA sports, especially basketball and football, generate a tremendous amount of money from the players, none of it goes to them. Even for athletes who aren’t financially burdened, it is still wrong to exploit them and not give them any sort of compensation.

According to ESPN, NCAA had not allowed players to make money off their likeness because they wanted to keep the clear division between college and professional sports.

However, this is extremely unjust toward the players, who are basically being exploited for money. College athletes put in hard work every single day, yet they don’t make a single penny. This is especially unfair for athletes who suffer injuries that lead to the end of their athletic careers, possibly costing them a chance to make it to the professional level. 

With this new policy, players will finally be able to make some cash off their talents. For those players who grew up financially unstable, they will be able to have some sort of income, which will prove to be extremely beneficial in the long run. According to NCAA, only 2% of all college athletes go pro. For the 98% who don’t go to the professional level and have to find other careers, they will be able to fall back on a fair amount of cash that was made during college by profiting from their name.

According to Sports Illustrated, The new rule change will be implemented by January 2021, by which all three NCAA divisions must have new rules ready to be enforced that will still provide a distinction between college sports and professional sports.