College athletes should be allowed to make money related to playing

I will begin by addressing concerns brought up by my opponent, then re-affirming my position. === Con's Case ===1) Protecting other businessesCon makes the case that we ought to protect the businesses that are currently selling autograph merchandise. To this, I say "why? " Those "businesses" did not produce the product, nor create the value behind the product. Absolutely all of the value of that merchandise is created by the athletes themselves. Since they created that value, they are the rightful holders of the value and ought to have the right to sell. The businesses do not create value and are, in effect, stealing that value from the students. Now, that just goes over the ethical reason for protecting those businesses. Let us now look to the practical side of the equation. Will students really corner the market? No, just like with pro NFL stars, they do not do the signings and sell the merchandise directly to the final consumer themselves. They do not have the business infrastructure, knowledge, nor time to do all that (it would require a sales team to process orders, a shipping and packaging team, accounting, and all aspects of business). They sell bulk merchandise to distributers for a flat rate or commision and the distributers then sell to the customers (they might add another line of middlemen). This is how most other businesses all around the world work. You rarely purchase anything directly from the manufaturer. It comes from a privately owned distributer or retailer. There is no reason to believe that college athletes would not do the same thing. After all, if they dedicate too much time to trying to micro manage those sales, they have less time to prepare for games and their performance will suffer.2) Pretecting poorer schoolsCon suggested that poorer schools would not be able to afford to pay students. This is, of course, not an issue, since my suggested system has nothing to do with schools paying students. However, even if that was allowed, with the $60,000 a year cap, most moderate sized schools could afford to pay their entire starting line up that rate (remember, there are some coaches making over $5 million a year [1]). What we would see would actually be the opposite. This would be better for the smaller schools as skilled players could go to smaller schools where they could be a starter all four years (rather than just their last 1 or 2) and do really well (by not playing as tough of opponents). While they may not get the national attention, they will still get a significant local fan base that can support their merchandise. This will drive more skilled players to those smaller school so that they can get more local attention and thus balance out the schools more. === Pro's Case ===My case still stands that the limitations on income will prevent the wealth and ego from going to their heads. My opponent also admits with their argument that it some form of payment is better then maintaining the status quo. So the status quo should be changed (that alone affirms the resolution) and nothing really challenges my case. Thank you,[1] . http://www.businessinsider.com...;