Americans continue to lean on the side of college athletes deserving to receive monetary compensation.
As of July 1, 2021, NCAA athletes were allowed to profit on their own name, image, and likeness, and a new survey by Sportico and The Harris Poll of over 2,000 respondents from August 11 to 13 found that 67% of U.S. adults feel college athletes should be compensated directly by their schools.
This number is divided into two buckets: those who “strongly agree” that college athletes should receive direct compensation, which is one-fourth of respondents (25%), and those who “somewhat “agree,” which makes the majority of the respondents at 42%.
18% of the respondents said they “somewhat disagree,” while the remaining 15% voted “strongly disagree.”
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Other parts of the survey saw that 64% of respondents supported college athletes’ right to obtain employee status, while 59% believed the athletes should be able to collectively bargain as a labor union.
The survey also shows that more Americans now support the athletes ability to profit from NIL than when Sportico and The Harris Project conducted a similar survey in November 2020, less than a year before the NIL rules changed. The August 2023 results show 74% of Americans support the athletes profiting from NIL compared to 62% in November 2020.
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The survey also showed the demographic split of the respondents, and nearly all demographic groups had a majority in favor of direct compensation for college athletes.
This includes gender, political stance, race, age, and whether or not the individual actually follows college sports closely.
The only demographic group that had less than 50% in favor of direct compensation were individuals aged 58 and above.
