On Wednesday, the NCAA urged a federal appeals court to reject a case by Division I athletes who want colleges to treat them as employees and pay them hourly wages, Associated Press reports.  

The lawyers for student-athletes argue that some of them spend over 30 hours on their sport and need money for expenses despite being on full scholarship.

In 2021, the NCAA made a historic change to its legislation, allowing student-athletes in the United States to make money off their name, image and likeness (NIL).

While several high-profile student-athletes have signed big money endorsement deals since, it has not benefited all athletes.

Lawyers arguing for the student-athletes claim they deserve a share of the money spent on coaches, college administrators and facilities and the billions made from broadcast deals.

However, they are only asking for a modest pay rate similar to that earned by work-study students.

"This does not open up a circumstance in which there’s a bidding war (for top talent)," lawyer Michael Willemin was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

However, the NCAA has asked the court to uphold the tradition of college athletes being unpaid amateurs.

NCAA lawyers and critics feel paying athletes might force colleges to shut down sports that don’t make as much money in comparison to American football and basketball programmes.

Athletes being treated as employees "launches you on the edge of a slippery slope that rapidly takes you to someplace that you don’t want to go", according to NCAA lawyer Steven B. Katz.

Katz also said that the value of full scholarships is significant than the $10,000 (£8,327/€9,366) to $15,000 (£12,491/€14,049) athletes can make on an hourly wage, arguing that scholarships could become taxable if athletes are treated as employees.   

He went on to say it would lead to further complications and questioned how teams would function if students on scholarships were paid employees and those without scholarship were not.

United States Circuit Judge Theodore McKee, one among the three-judge panel handling the case, suggested some students can be treated as employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act but acknowledged that it would lead to "so many practical problems."

"Maybe that’s where we end up - that the quarterback at the SEC school is an employee and the woman who’s running cross-country track at Alabama, they’re not an employee," McKee said.

A timing for the ruling has not been decided yet.