The idea of student athletes being paid is very intriguing to me because I would've thought that by this day in age we would be paying student athletes at least a minor share of what they truly deserve. Upon looking into this subject closely I have found that no student athletes are allowed to take any sort of money in any way, shape or form from anyone. This had me very curious why no student athletes were being paid when technically they're the ones doing all the work to earn the money for the NCAA. Upon reading several different articles I feel as if this makes me entitled to write about this argument and give an unbiased, research driven discussion.

My first article that I have found is "Should NCAA Athletes Be Paid?" coming from U.S. News & World Report a very trustworthy piece of evidence. Within the article the question is presented if NCAA Athletes should be paid due to the shear size of the company. The NCAA brings in 6 billion dollars annually and none of that is given to the players themselves. The deeper the teams go into tournaments the more money they make and the debate club is split between the decision. This article offers the evidence needed to understand why student athletes should be receiving a portion of what they create. The debate club of U.S. News & World Report holds high remarks as a source due to its nature of statistically true information as well as its comparison of both sides of the argument at hand. My second article I have found is "Why N.C.A.A. Athletes Shouldn't Be Paid" by Ekow Yankah from The New Yorker. Within this article evidence is presented stating that NCAA Athletes should not be paid because it takes away from the value of the school and the education system that universities strive to provide. Yankah argues that by paying the players you take away from years of tradition and the integrity of that university and solely focus on handing out materialistic concepts. This article first and foremost helps my argument by offering a different viewpoint of the issue. This article gives a point of view from the university in a sense that offering money takes away from the true purpose of attending a university, education. Regarding the credibility of the article it remains a credible source coming from such a newspaper as The New Yorker. Finally, my third article I have found is "College Athletes Should Be Paid" by Stanley Eitzen of Sports and Athletes. This article focuses on the aspect that the coaches and leaders of this massive NCAA organization bring in millions of dollars a year for themselves. During the year coaches are allowed to take sponsorship opportunities and pocket millions of extra dollars while players are not allowed to accept even the slightest gift from someone or have an agent as well. It also brings up the point that the further teams make it into there playoff rounds the more money they receive from outside sources and the coaches of these teams can receives bonuses upwards of millions of dollars on top of there already multi-million-dollar salary. This brings up the question of injustice in the organization in which the players do all the work yet their coaches and universities reap all the benefits of their dedication. This article strengthens my argument by giving evidence that coaches and universities reap all the benefits of the players hard work and determination and posing the question of whether or not students should be given money for there contributions to the team.

The main question that is being posed when asking if NCAA student athletes should be paid or not really comes down to a matter of the integrity of the university and the reputation they are trying to maintain. In my last article I mentioned there was a great comparison given in the sense of economic terms. The NCAA is the enormous corporation and all of the players are the workers of this company. Without having to pay any of the workers that work for this giant corporation, the corporation is able to pocket a substantial amount more than if they had to give out salaries to all the workers. Even if they decided to start paying student athletes there comes the dilemma of how to pay the athletes. With there being many different divisions within the NCAA does that mean higher division players are paid more than lower division or is it all the same salary given out amongst all the players. Another difficulty that comes up with paying student athletes is the act of recruitment turns into what college will become the highest bidder with most student athletes are money chaser themselves. When looking at all the different perspectives of the various sources I have found my opinion upon the topic has not changed, but I can understand the difficulties of paying the athletes but also the constant criticism of not paying them as well. Upon looking back at my research question I would add more to my question than change it completely. I spend a lot of time talking about all the different reasons in which paying the student athletes is a step that needs to be taken. I would focus more along the lines of why paying student athletes is not such a bad thing and also gives reason why there are positive and negative aspects to both sides of the question.
