The NCAA organization’s top governing board voted unanimously to allow college athletes to be compensated which will mark a huge change for student-athletes. This is more sports news, but it is also relevant media news because the athletes will be getting paid mainly for their image and likeness in the media such as product endorsement commercials and advertisements.

The NCAA’s 3 divisions will have to individually decided their own rules and details regarding this change. The NCAA has always previously been strictly against compensating their players, as they believe there should be a clear distinction between an amateur player and a professional player. Last month, California. became the first state to pass and implement a law that would allow student athletes attending college in the state to be compensated for their likeliness in the media.

This new law is very controversial and people believe it should be heavily distinctive. People believe that all of the scholarship money each student-athlete receives should be both treated and taxed like income. I don’t think that scholarship money should be received as income because its not getting spent on personal items for entertainment, it’s spent on educational purposes– which is essentially a necessity nowadays. However, it does make sense that if students are getting paid for their athletic likeliness that the money they receive from this should be considered income– because it is. They are essentially working; playing a sport, and getting paid for it. I agree with this new law, and I think it should have been in effect a long time ago. All the players that played sports in college, were great at their sport and the star of their college, but didn’t go on to be in the Professional league, could have had some sort of financial security due to their play in college.

Article: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/29/ncaa-allows-athletes-to-be-compensated-for-names-images.html