Professional athletes are part of the top 1% of America in terms of yearly income. College athletes, though not paid at all yet, perform the same actions as these professional athletes. The average work week for most Americans in today's world is 40 hours. The same week, millions of student-athletes around the United States will be putting in more time, approximately 43.3 hours, in practice time, and weight lifting alone. Additionally, they must fulfill the grueling and stressful coursework expected of a normal college student. If it were you doing all of this it may not seem that the free tuition, clothing and food is enough, and that is currently the opinion of many Division I athletes. This paper will explore the topic of whether or not college athletes should be compensated for their talent and work.

As an avid sports spectator, this topic is of interest to me. Whether professional or college sports, I have teams to root for and an excuse to put off my homework to watch them play. In terms of how this topic affects my life, student-athletes receiving payment does not really impact my lifestyle but I do believe it could affect my environment. Attending a school like South Carolina means that there are a lot of student-athletes on campus. If our athletes were being rewarded with big dollars, then that could change the way they act on campus and the way other students relate to them. My personal experience with this topic is simple and it also ties into my qualification to write about the matter. In my junior and senior years of high school I played varsity basketball and came across several offers to play college basketball. The offers were nothing major, just mid-level D3 schools, but I had to consider what I would gain from attending any of those schools.  As a former athlete I definitely have an opinion on the subject and also have a fair amount of knowledge regarding the college sports world. 

The first source I am introducing is an article from the US New debate club. The question I have asked was put before them. Almost everyone on the board voted for college athletes to be financially compensated. All of their reasons seemed to circulate around one major theme, college sports is a business, and a big one at that. During the yearly "March Madness" tournaments, "CBS and Turner Broadcasting make more than $1 billion off of the games thanks in part to a $700,000 ad rate for a 30 second spot during the Final Four" (U.S. News). One billion dollars is just a drop in a bucket compared to the $6 billion dollars the NCAA makes every single year. Us News is a credible and reliable source for media and news coverage. As far as biased remarks and decisions go, every person is going to answer this question based off of their own beliefs and life experiences but the presentation of solid dollars and facts back those opinions.

My second source is a Forbes article written by Marc Edelman. Edelman's viewpoint is interesting as he is considering these athletes to be employees of the universities that they play for.  "College football players at Northwestern University petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to form a union. The NCAA disagrees with the petition, arguing that the student-athletes are not "employees" under federal law" (Edelman 1). He goes on to state 21 reasons why college athletes are employees of the NCAA and not just student-athletes. One very important point he brings up is in regards to the name "student-athlete" itself. He says, "Although the NCAA claims college athletes are just students, the NCAA's own tournament schedules require college athletes to miss classes for nationally televised games that bring in revenue" (Edelman 1). This implies that the student-athlete's studies are not the priority, but making money for the organization is the primary goal. He also says, "Meanwhile, the annual NCAA men's basketball tournament affects more than six days of classes (truly "Madness" if the players aren't "employees")" (Edelman 2). Forbes is an extremely credible source, trusted around the world, with senior writers. 

My third and final source is an article from the popular column The New Yorker, written by Ekow Yankah. She argues the opposing view of my other two sources by saying that paying student-athletes isn't smart because it does not solve a problem that most of these athletes have, how to manage their lives and get an education along with playing the sport they are good at and love. She says, "The athletes in major football and men's basketball programs are disproportionately black, many from poor and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. For too many of them, the N.C.A.A. is the only game in town. In some dispiriting cases, the students are so unprepared that academic failure seems inevitable. In worse cases still, their scholarships are cynically undermined by the schools themselves. Coaches steer students into empty classes, or supply so-called academic support that amounts to cheating. It hardly seems coincidental, then, that sports with less African-American participation, such as baseball and hockey, maintain robust minor-league systems without the national gnashing of teeth" (Yankah 1). She goes on to say, "And yet I believe that the drive to pay college athletes is a grave mistake -- not because it misdiagnoses the disease but because it suggests that the only cure is to put the patient out of his misery. It fails, first of all, to recognize the value of sports as a part of education" (Yankah 1). This addresses appropriately the issue of student-athletes doing a lot of the athlete part and little to none of the student part of that agreement. This source is very reliable because the New Yorker is a respected and very prestigious column.

This research question is arguable because, as you can see, there are two sides to this subject. Each side has a reasonable explanation for why their side is correct and one side has years of history on its side. In the end, this may be a subject that gets ruled on many different times and may continue to go back and forth. Two of my three sources were for compensating the players and both of them came to this conclusion based on the same grounds. The grounds of the sources do not affect my stand on the issue at all. As it stands, my opinion is the same as the two sources that believe student-athletes should be paid. My research question is broad, but I believe that it has to be, considering it is dealing with a very large entity (NCAA) that controls everything underneath of it. I could possibly narrow it down to one or two sports and focus on the most profitable sports in the country such as basketball and football. 

