Recently I came across the controversy that has been occurring for some time concerning the student-athletes that are not being paid for their participation in sports. The contracts given to these students by universities state that students resign any form of economic compensation and that being a student justifies them not to get paid. However, when we take a look at the amount of profit being made in the NCAA March Madness, how can we not give students who are actually creating the revenue any kind of economic compensation?

As a fan of sociology, theorist Karl Marx quickly came to mind when I saw such exploitation of student-athletes. As many of us might be familiar with, or at least have heard of, Karl Marx is a renown economist that has been widely known for his critique on capitalism. Among his previous ideas, Marx argues that history is a class struggle that is defined though the transformations of the economy and that the division of labor is what shapes human life. These class struggles and division of labor is characterized through a 2 class system that he defines as the proletariat and the bourgeoise.

The bourgeoise are those who own the means of production (factories, jobs, real estate), while the proletariat are the ones who compete for jobs owned by the bourgeoise.  As a result, the proletariat must inhabit the mode of production - the way of doing something - that is being presented by the bourgeoise.

This is exactly what is happening in the case of student-athletes. Student athletes are told to sign contracts (a mode of production) that are written by those who are in charge, the NCAA and universities (the bourgeoisie). The idea that students must not be paid because they are amateurs and that events like these are simply for entertainment, Marx would argue, hide the real class relations in society, or as he would say, are ideal superstructures used to cover up and alienate the people from what is really happening: exploitation and the accumulation of capital for the bourgeoisie.

Capitalism represents a situation where the means of production is in the hands of a few (NCAA and universities) and where workers (student-athletes) are basically forced into these jobs as their only form of survival,  as are workers who were displaced by so many factories, machines, and technology.

Based on the Labor Theory of Value, "labor/productive activity is at root of all value" since we must work to survive. The theory holds 3 different values, use-value, exchange value, and surplus value. Use-value is the usefulness of something - NCAA being done for entertainment and students-athletes playing basketball, exchange value is the labor needed to recoup investment - the years of training and trainees for student-athletes, and lastly the surplus value which is basically new value created out of thin air. Surplus value is the difference between the price sold at and the cost of the production. Consequently, any extra money that becomes surplus to the different between the two becomes capital and revenue for the bourgeoisie and no extra pay for the workers.

The NCAA has taken advantage of contracts to the extent of creating video games and giving no type of compensation to the students who are portrayed in those video games as the basketball players. They in turn have received up to 1 billion dollars in the NCAA March Madness through the gear, video games, ticket sales, among other things. Yet claim that student athletics is what really matters. But does it?

If they are receiving so much money and not even paying students even some percentage for their hard work and dedication then does that put athletics its priority? No. If they really care about athletics why not get rid of all the sponsorship that takes place in the NCAA. Some universities state that paying players will only lower the funding for other sports, however I'm sure funding can be found in other programs from the school. Probably lowering budgets can result in the sufficient funds for other programs.  I certainly agree in a movement to unionize student-athletes because receiving an education for playing a sport is no longer seen as valuable, especially when we know that students in sports dedicate so much of their time to sports that their education can negatively be affected.