I am interested in the topic of paying collegiate athletes because I had the opportunity to play for a junior college team which could have led into me playing for a division 1 parent school. My research question does not affect me or my values in any real way but could have should I have played for a college football team and is something I feel very strongly about. I watch college sports and had the opportunity to potentially play for a college team. Knowing how selective the college level is and the fact that teams hand out so few many scholarships. Many student athletes play without even an athletic scholarship making their case for potential compensation even stronger. Watching and being very interested in college sports as well as having the opportunity to potentially take it to the next level after high school football makes me a credible source. The fact that I have also followed this topic in the media because of my interest in college sports makes me more credible than some. All this combines to make it obvious that athletes at the college level deserve some sort of compensation beyond the scholarships that a fraction of the players receive.

My first source focuses on numbers over all sports that colleges partake in noting that on average the top 10 revenues from college sports is 144.8 million dollars per year and that on average these 10 schools dish out on average only $12.4 million in scholarship money (Gaines, Cork). A huge $132.5 million difference that could be shared with the student athletes. The article does not have much at stake here as it simply supplies numbers that show the vast differences in figures between scholarship allowances and the revenues generated by college teams, granted these are the top 10 highest grossing college sports teams. The author Cork Gaines is the sports page editor for the Business Insider website. He has written for several notable sports sites including the Yahoo sports page and has also authored several chapters in several books. He also has a doctorate from Fordham university. The author really has no way to be biased based on his professional or educational careers. He went to a small university which would leave him out of the conversation when it came to paying athletes as the bigger school which bring in the most revenue from sports obviously have a bigger stake in the debate. 

 My second Source focuses on men and woman's college basketball during the march madness tournament and shows how much money the NCAA and licensed network TV providers make on ads alone. 

During the months of the March Madness tournament alone these companies can make in excess of 1 billion dollars during the months of March through April thanks in part to the insane advertisement prices such as $700,000 for a 30 second ad during the final four (US News). Add to this the fact that the NCAA already sells the likenesses of college players on jerseys and in videogames or other memorabilia. The picture quickly becomes clear as to how crooked this system is currently. This article clearly has a biased standpoint and presents strong facts for arguing in favor of compensating student athletes in someway further that than currently are. While there is no one credited with authoring the article they clearly hold a clear stance; That college athletes should be compensated further. 

The third source was a theoretical article that explained the impacts and changes that the NCAA would see if they implemented paying athletes. Examples include how paying college athletes would affect coach salaries which is a highly controversial topic already considering the insane amounts of money that high profile coaches make at many division 1 schools. The article included what paying college athletes would do to the relationship between the coach and the player in college as it could veer away from the classic father/children situation to a more partnership oriented relationship which could hinder the teams performance somewhat. This article takes a strong stance for the paying of athletes as it rebukes many of the arguments that have been made for not paying college athletes. The author is extremely credible when it comes to sports as he has written 8 books about the sports world and his ability to rebuke the NCAA's arguments against paying athletes stems from the fact that he frequents several radio stations where the topic of discussion is the politics of sports. 

This research question is arguable because currently student athletes aren't being paid for their efforts in and on the various arena's of play they share while it is being argued for and against by many people in the world of sports. There are many disagreements and arguments against paying collegiate athletes among them being pushing athletes further away from an education and more towards capitalizing specifically off of their abilities. Another argument that is commonly made is the change in relationship between the coach and a player in college being more of a partnership than the classic father to child relationship. There are good points made on both sides but I think the points that are made for the paying of college athletes carry much more weight. To revise my research question I might add on something about asking why they shouldn't be paid in college to get a better look at the other side of the debate.
