7A- Testing your Hypothesis

1)The opportunity that I would like to pursue is that the NCAA and the Universities should be paying their college Athletes.

2) The Student athletes at the collegiate level should be compensated as they bring a significant amount of money to their Universities and the NCAA.

• The who: The College Athletes
• The What: Should be compensated by the NCAA and their Universities
• The Why: The NCAA and different Universities bring in a lot of revenue because of the athletes and the athletes do not get any of it.

3)Testing the Who: The Who here are the college athletes across America Primarily at the Division 1 level. These players are the ones who are mostly involved but it can also include the families of the athletes, the school officials and the NCAA executives. The main people are the athletes themselves as they are the ones who are the center of this issue.
Testing the What: The hard part about this issue is what are the boundaries? the NCAA and the Universities need to be able to set the boundaries and set guidelines for how much each athlete should be compensated. It is hard to judge how much a certain athlete is worth to a school as each sport brings in different revenue numbers. They need to also decide whether an athlete should be able to make  money off of their own memorabilia or likeness.
Testing the Why: It is important to properly treat and compensate people if they bring in profit to a corporation. The NCAA and Universities will claim that the scholarships that athletes get is enough of a form of compensation.  All athletes are not of full scholarships and many do not receive enough money to not be compensated more for their roles in the university.
4) I interviewed students at the University of Florida who were Athletes and some who were not athletes. Among all the athletes, they all agreed that they should receive some sort of compensation from the NCAA or the school. They claimed that they bring in money to the school and should be Paid for it. One of the student athletes who I interviewed told me that they are employees of the NCAA and the University and that if this was another business, they would be paid for the time they spent working. They all brought up the hard scheduling of classes, early workouts and late practices and stated that the amount of time they put in is way over 40 hours a week so therefore they are full time workers. It was split on how they would be compensated whether it be a stipend of a set amount per athlete, or allowing the athlete to make money off of their own likeness and be able to sell memorabilia they have received. When talking to the non-athletes, they held a stance that they did not think that athletes should be given an extra stipend but rather be able to make money off of autographs and their likeness. I think that this is a pretty common theme to where people think athletes should be able to market themselves.

5)The opportunity of getting the collegiate athletes is one that has been big in discussion for the past couple years. When a team wins a National Championship, the NCAA puts on a commercial with an ad to buy the gear from their website. They will exploit the athletes and use their remarkable plays and performances to sell merchandise and make money. The athletes do not see any of that money. I think that when the NCAA will find a way to make this work they will be pushed to make sure the athletes are taken care of before other leagues start becoming more apparent. with talking to the interviewees, I learned that people see pros and cons from both sides. Recruiting would become more centralized to the bigger schools that will offer them more money. I see this as an opportunity for the athletes and the NCAA to be able to market them more because more athletes will be wanting to do more media work if they are able to get paid for it.