alt Hacker News>If the players aren't employed by their teams, provided with healthcare and pensions and all the rest, then it absolutely is.
Why? They are being paid, fed, housed, and educated in exchange for playing sports at nearly the highest level. Where is the injustice? They live lives of opulence and leisure that kings of previous ages could not even dream of.
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College athletes get healthcare. They have team doctors and trainers, and for general healthcare if they aren't covered by their parents' insurance they will have insurance through the school (required) which will be paid out of their athletic scholarship. I don't know of any major university that would permit a residential student to not have health insurance coverage.
Funnily enough... considering how healthcare in the US is tied to employment, then professional athletes of any age should be covered for it by their employer.
People who do pro sports are constantly pushing their bodies to the very limit of what they can do. With those constraints, accidents and overruns are much more likely to cause extended damage.
They aren't being educated.
Outside of Stamford and the Ivies, I'd wager that most players, especially in football, are taking easy classes (and in some cases having tests taken for them) and even then, things are quite easy for them. They aren't taking physics, economics, etc.. that actually prepare students for the real world. There's not enough time for that.
I saw it for myself at a big D1 football program. You think at a school like Texas or Alabama, a school that worships football above all else, would let their athletes be preoccupied with school? Come on now.