A controversy that has been brought up lately through the antics of Johnny “Football” Manziel who reportedly signed merchandise for a broker in return for a nice chunk of cash. This isn’t the first time a college athlete has been paid to play in sports nor does it seem to be the last.

Colleges continue to do this in order to get the top players from around the country to have at least one year of glory at that school. This doesn’t stop at colleges making money off of their student-athletes it goes all the way to the NCAA itself. Doing a little research I found this with a simple search of Johnny Manziel and his jersey number and nickname popped up on a store website.

These athletes, especially the greats in college sports, are left to watch others to make millions off their names when they may never make a dime trying to make it at the professional level of the sport if he or she had an injury or wasn’t good enough to make the next jump.

Carson Hollyoak, a star senior basketball player for Bellarmine Prep says, “the NCAA and colleges are making so much money off  jersey and t-shirt sales that I think athletes should get some amount if the NCAA is going to continue to do that.” If the university is caught, the price to them can be harsh. SMU’s football team was one of the biggest scandals in college sports for paying players and was given the death penalty so they couldn’t play football for a full year.

Another star athlete from Bellarmine prep, Quentin Purtzer, was asked if he was to get paid to play what he would do and he said, “if I was offered money to play in college though, it would be pretty hard to turn down.” Some of these players getting offered money are barely making it by and would almost be a disgrace to their family if they denied the offer that could help so many they are close to.

The NCAA is making big bucks off these student athletes with not enough money going their way. In the end student-athletes should at least make some money off of their name since they have worked so hard to get where they are in their sport.