Paying college athletes has become a major topic in the world of collegiate sports. Many people  believe the athletes are being taken advantage of by the University they play for and by the NCAA. These two institutions, especially the NCAA make millions of dollars off of their student-athletes. Many believe that some of this money should go into the pockets of these collegiate athletes. I believe that paying student-athletes a percentage of what is made off of them, makes them a professional athlete. Student-athletes should be given enough money to live on and not much more, considering that playing a sport at a high level is a full time job and leaves the players no time to work an actual job. Paying collegiate athletes an enormous amount of money could ruin the basis of college sports, and that is that they are amateur athletes, not professionals. People that I know that play Division-1 sports, play at a high level, but they are still trying to improve to become professionals. They have just recently started to give student-athletes a weekly stipend for food and other living expenses. Many athletes come to a University like South Carolina to further their education and to play amongst the best in college sports. They come here to get better, so they can eventually become a professional, either in sports or in their field of study. I am currently studying the business of college sports and learning how the NCAA is run. While the NCAA is making very good money off of these athletes, the athletes sign away their likeness and their talent to their school and the NCAA. These athletes are still amateurs, so they should be paid like amateurs. 

The first article I chose to answer my research question is an article from The New Yorker, written by Ekow Yankah entitled, "Why N.C.A.A. Athletes Shouldn't Be Paid." Yankah's main argument in his article is that paying college athletes takes out the idea of amateurism in college athletics. College athletics will turn into a bidding war for the top recruits in the country. It will turn into who will pay which player the most amount to come to their school, and certain smaller schools cannot compete with the budgets of schools like Michigan or Alabama. Smaller schools will not stand a chance if college athletes start to get paid.  

My next article was one written by Tiffany Patterson on the website SmartAsset called "Should College Athletes Be Paid?" In this article, Patterson lists out the pro's and con's of paying collegiate athletes. All of the points that she makes in this article are the main arguments on both sides of the issue. An argument for paying players is the enormous amounts of money that they bring in for their school and the NCAA and an argument against paying players is that they are already getting payed enough through their scholarships. Both of these are great points and are what I believe the foundations to both sides of the topic of paying college athletes. This article is one of the more unbiased on this issue, simply just stating facts and the different arguments that both sides can make regarding this topic. 

My last article is on the Daily Local News website in the Sports section. It is written by Kieran McCauley and simply titled, "College Athletes Shouldn't Be Paid." This article is focused on the NCAA Basketball Tournament that occurs every March and April. The key statement that McCauley makes is that college athletes should be compensated, not paid. They are compensated through their scholarship with the University. McCauley believes that that is compensation enough for the student-athletes. McCauley uses numerous statistics in this article to back up his opinion and to show how much a college education is actually worth. He cites a few events that had recently occurred as his evidence, including former college athletes signing major professional contracts. He uses this to show that the ones that are entertaining and who sell more tickets will eventually see their payday once they leave college and continue on in their career. 

The research question I chose has been argued for years now and has recently become more and more popular. It is a major issue in college athletics and there are many different arguments that can be had. For the most part, I agree with my sources, considering two of them argued similar points that I would argue. One of the sources wasn't so much opinion based, so there wasn't much to disagree with. I agreed with all of the pros and cons, but I believe that the cons heavily outweighed the pros. From some of the sources I read but didn't use, they made me think about the side I was against as they were arguing for that side as well. The sources I used had useful evidence and strengthened my opinion and my argument on the topic. I don't think I would revise my research question because there isn't much that can be changed, unless a whole new topic is started. The question is fairly basic and straightforward. 

