The main reason I am interested in this subject is because I participate in this activity. This question is one that I am particularly interested in for a few reasons. One major reason is that, at least in Carolina Band, we put in many hours rehearsing and twelve hour straight days on game day. Because of that, I personally feel like we should get some credit and be televised for our halftime show or pregame. Another reason is that most of our parents cannot afford to come to every game or sometimes not even one and therefore cannot see their child perform with the band at all. If the performances were televised they could watch every performance from their home. This topic affects me because it would allow me to have the opportunity to be on TV and it would allow my family to be able to tune in to the game and watch me perform every time I do so. I have personally performed seven pre-game shows and six halftime show performances, one of which was at a Carolina Panthers NFL game, and out of all of these performances a total of fifteen seconds of one pre-game performance made it onto television. I am qualified to talk about this because I have marched a season with Carolina Band and was at every home and away game this season, except for the game against Louisiana State University due to complications of the flood in Columbia. This is significant because it shows that I know a lot about college marching band through my experiences and witnessing other major college bands.

My first source, "As Seen on TV (Or Not)" from Halftime Magazine, is not reliable because there is no central claim in this article. The author, Elizabeth Geli, does not choose to argue a certain point and instead decides to simply inform the reader about the facts of the subject. The author's main evidence are interviews with producers of college football games from the major sportscasters such as ESPN/ABC, CBS, and FOX. She also interviews organizers from some of the BCS bowl games of the past. It is very apparent that the author is blatantly for bands being shown for pre-game and halftime. She does not however come right out and say this is the case. The author goes over several interests in this article. One interest is the companies that provide the TV coverages and what their views are. Other interests are those of some of the major producers of major games in the college football postseason such as the Orange Bowl, the Rose Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, and the Sugar Bowl. This author is fairly credible to write this article. The author, Elizabeth Geli, marched at the University of Southern California with the USC Trojan Marching Band. This is a premiere marching ensemble that plays in one of the power five conferences, the PAC-12. This however would make her biased towards the side of the marching band being on TV rather than not televised.

Unlike the previous article, this article on Odyssey, titled "Why College Bands Should be Televised," does try to argue a point. The author, Jeffrey Martin, argues the point of why college marching bands should be televised. The author's first point of evidence is a personal experience that he and his father shared. The remainder of the article, the author uses logos to argue his central claim. The author clearly states that the main value of this article is that college marching bands should be televised during the broadcasts of the games. The author does tell us how televising the marching bands would affect the interests of the television companies that broadcast the games. He also mentions how this would affect the interests of the students in the marching bands. The author has credibility because he is in a college marching band at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He explains that while they are a division III athletic school, the band works as hard as any other to make sure that their performances on game day are up to the proper standard. Being in a college band, the author does have a bias towards the band being on the television.

My last source is a more unique source because it is about social media. It is an online post from the Washington Post about a series of events that happened on Twitter. The original post was done by sports analyst Jim Rome saying that the "dorks that run around on the field at halftime are pretty cool." This tweet was responded to by multiple tweets from many different marching band sources and marching bands in response to this as well as just everyday people. There are two values in this article. First, the value of Jim Rome which is that he does not in any way value the people in marching band or what they do. Then there are the values of the people in marching bands which are that we do matter. There are also two interests, that of Jim Rome, and that of the marching bands. The author, Sarah Larimer simply only compiled the tweets that were made about this topic. She writes only a few sentences in this article. Judging from what is written in the article, the author is biased towards the side of the marching bands and not to that of Jim Rome.

This research question is very arguable for a few reasons. One is because there are multiple sides to the argument all with good cases that can easily be taken from and built upon. Another reason is that this is a question I have heard many times from peers in Carolina Band as well as from other people I know. People say that we sounded great on TV and that they wished they could have seen us too and they wonder why they do not show the band. I agree with basically everything that my sources I used have to say. I think that these sources just deepen my understanding on the subject and that my research question will work well.

