12A-Figuring out Buyer Behavior

1) The segment which I am using for this assignment is finding Student Athletes and seeing how they go about their days to show how they deal with the time they work.

2) I chose to interview different athletes from different sports here at UF. Getting people from different people from different sports is important because each sport has their own scholarship limitations and have different schedules throughout the days and weeks. I interviewed my roommate  who is on the baseball team, one of my friends on the Lacrosse team, and someone on the football team. These three sports will give me different views on what the daily and weekly timelines are for them as they go through handling the life as a student-athlete.

3) What I learned from these three interviews is that each sport is very similar, yet have a lot of different things that go on in their days that make each situation unique. Each of the athletes had to be up early in the morning ranging from 6-7 o'clock in the morning in order to go get their first workout of the day in. All of the athletes then had to go to class from 9:30 until around 1:30- 2:00. Straight from class, they all had to go to to their second workout of the day with team practices. The football and baseball practices went longer as the athletes did not get out of practice until around 6:30 if not later due to extra work or treatment with the trainers. With mandatory study hall, the athletes are required to also attend other team events and if they have a game, they will not get out until around 10:00 at night. With homework to do and other things to handle, the days of the athletes are normally not complete until around 12:00 at night and then they have to wake up the next day and do it all over again. A common misconception is that these athletes are on full scholarships and get everything paid for. The only athlete which was on a full scholarship, was the football player. Baseball and lacrosse are two of the many sports that are under scholarship restrictions and this limits the total amount of aid that each athlete can get.

4)The first solution to this problem for the athletes is that they receive some sort of compensation or ability to make money off of their sport. Olympic athletes , college or pro, can keep the money they get from winning their events, yet a true college athlete who makes millions for their school and have the same time spent working cannot market themselves or get a little more compensation. These athletes talk to other non athlete students and they have the ability to go to social events, or do homework and be done in a timely manner, or have the ability to get a job to earn money. The athletes do not have that opportunity.

5) What I got out of these interviews is exactly what I expected. I knew that these schedules for the athletes were extremely rigorous and very time consuming. These athletes go through tough day to day schedules in season and off season and they feel as though they should be getting some sort of compensation for their work. I learned a little bit more of the different teams schedules in depth and saw how they deal with what their sport requires.

6) These more in depth interviews made me even more convinced that action needs to be taken by the NCAA and the universities. These athletes have to be able to either get compensation which would be regulated, or allow them to market themselves with businesses. There is no way that an athlete has time to get a job to help with money or help pay for school if their scholarship does not cover it. These athletes are being used to make money for the NCAA and the different Universities and there needs to be a fix.