# Should student athletes be paid?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-student-athletes-be-paid/716922>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [April 5, 2015, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-student-athletes-be-paid/716922 "2015-04-05T22:48:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 59

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**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\
**Post date:** [April 6, 2015, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-student-athletes-be-paid/716922/59 "2015-04-06T14:09:51Z")

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> [@Salvor](#):
>
> There is no free ride there, they generate far more revenue than it costs the schools to provide,

I thought this myth was put to bed a long time ago.

[Myth: College Sports Are a Cash Cow](http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Pages/Myth-College-Sports-Are-a-Cash-Cow2.aspx)

> [@](#):
>
> For almost every other university, sports is a money-losing proposition. Only big-time college football has a chance of generating enough net revenue to cover not only its own costs but those of “Olympic” sports like field hockey, gymnastics, and swimming. Not even men’s basketball at places like Duke University or the University of Kansas can generate enough revenue to make programs profitable.
> 
> As a result, most colleges and universities rely on what the NCAA calls “allocated revenue.” This includes direct and indirect support from general funds, student fees, and government appropriations. In other words, most colleges subsidize their athletics programs, sometimes to startling degrees.

It’s been discussed here. Like this post from 2005:

> [@do college athletics really make money?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-college-athletics-really-make-money/317650/12):
>
> The book [College Sports, Inc](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805014454/102-6381630-4861723?v=glance) talks about this. It’s been a while since I read it, but the basic conclusion was that only a few very successful college sports programs break even, and even then, they don’t take into account things like the cost of building stadiums, because that usually comes out of the general fund. That leaves the obvious question of why colleges put up with the likes of Bobby Knight if they’re not even making money - the answer given in the book was that a big-time college sports program drums up applicants who are not necessarily academically inclined, but like the idea of associating themselves with a famous sports school. Why that is considered a good thing, I don’t know.

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