Research Blog #3: How might privatization connect to your topic?

The issue of student-athletes not being paid rises from the idea that Universities are privatizing and need a way to make more money. Student-athletes are used as a way to attract new students and sponsors to the school as a good sports team is a big draw. The universities can use the athletes likeness and name to promote games and draw more viewers, which in turn leads to larger television deals. When the universities shift "...from civic concern to the pursuit of self-interest..." the student-athletes suffer (Starr).

Starr, Paul. "The Meaning of Privatization." Yale Law and Policy Review 6 (1988): 6-41.  Print and web.  5 Jan. 2014.  Available online at http://www.princeton.edu/~starr/articles/articles80-89/Starr-MeaningPrivatization-88.htm

Research Blog #2: Scouting the Territory

I would like the paper to focus more on the NCAA putting lots of restrictions on players to keep them in a "amateur" status. This status seems to give these students little representation when it comes to policy change. "Amateurism" as a keyword brings up many articles which talk about how the amateur label is used to keep students from protecting themselves with agents and unions.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/08/the-end-of-amateurism-not-the-end-of-college-sports/379200/

http://thesportjournal.org/article/ncaa-division-i-athletics-amateurism-and-exploitation/

Research Blog #1: Topic Idea

For my research paper, I would like to explore how the NCAA and Universities treat student athletes unfairly and use them to make money without proper compensation. Student athletes face many restrictions in order to be allowed to play in college that seem unfair for the amount of time and effort they must dedicate to the sport they play. I will explore how the NCAA makes lots of money off of the athletes and how these athletes get no financial return for all the effort they must put in. The universities also use these players for advertisement as having a good sports team often increases enrollment and brings in corporate sponsorship. Student athletes deserve to be compensated more than they currently are because of the amount of revenue and free advertisement that they currently bring to schools. This paper will focus on Division 1 in particular.