I love college sports, and whether student athletes should get compensated is a hot topic among fans, players, analysis, and the NCAA.  This research question affects my values because I feel like you should get some sort of compensation for hard work. Student athletes have worked their whole life to become a college athlete, and the sad truth is most won't go on to play at the next level.  So in my eyes the hard work they put into becoming a college athlete all goes to waste. Not to mention the risk of injuries that could end one's career. My only personal experience on this is watching college sports as a fan.  I feel like I'm qualified to write on this subject because I'm passionate about it. I feel that if you're passionate about something then you're qualified to write a paper on the subject, especially if it's an opinion based paper.  I believe this because if you are truly passionate about something then you're going to be willing to put in the work to make the paper great. While researching I used a variety of sources to help support my argument.

The first source, which is a Georgia Southern Honors Thesis paper, explains that student athletes should have trust funds set up for them.  The source goes through the backstory of the Ed O'Bannon case where the NCAA and EA Sports were sued for using player likeness and without player compensation.  The major values of the source is that student athletes should get some sort of compensation for the NCAA making such a huge profit of the players likeness.  Some main parts of the article are how the trust fund would get set up, would it change the perception of student athletes, and where would the money come from. There is no background on the author but there aren't any opinionated statements. Stephanie Gratto solely relied on facts, her primary sources, and her secondary sources.  I don't notice any bias when reading through her paper.

http://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1085&context=honors-theses

The major claim of the article, which is a USNews article that is a collaboration of yes and no opinions of USNews writers, is that even though players are student athletes, their play has a major affect on their education.  This article is mainly opinion based so the evidence used is mainly first person thoughts and views on the topic. The major point of the article is what happens when a player gets seriously hurt? If the injury ends their career, it would mean they couldn't go on to play at the next level, they lose out on everything they've worked for. The article also discusses how a player receives a scholarship based on how they play, and keeping the scholarship is determined by how they perform on the field. Brian Frederick is apart of the Board of Sports Coalition, and is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Sports Industry Management Program. Seeing that the author is apart of the Sports Management Program shows me that he bit bias towards the "yes" side. 

http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/should-ncaa-athletes-be-paid/fans-must-understand-that-college-sports-is-big-business

The main claim of the third article, called "College Athletes Should Be Paid Exactly This Much, written by Jonathan Mahler, is that the NCAA makes so much revenue at the expense of all the student athletes.  The new playoff system in college football will generate an estimated $480 million, which the student athletes who the main reason that much was generated, will get no cut out of it.  The major values in the article is that the author points out he believes that student athletes are being taken advantage of because they can't profit from their likeness and their hard work.  The author also asks how student athletes should get paid. Should colleges or universities bid on the top high school recruits, or should they get graduation bonuses set up. One glaring problem the author covers would be the financial burden that colleges or universities could get put in bidding for top recruits. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any background on the Jonathan Mahler. So there is no way to analyze the credibility of the author. Bloomberg is a political website that seems to be well respected. 


This research question is arguable because there's multiple ways that the NCAA could pay student athletes, and I believe there's a right and a wrong way that they could go about paying them. Most of the sources I used were fairly agreeable besides disagreeing on how the student athletes should specifically get paid. Since most of the sources agreed with what I'm arguing it hasn't really changed my own perspective on my research question. I believe I have a pretty decent research question right now and I don't believe that I need to revise it. 

