Blog Post #5 - Project Preparation

After finishing and discussing our rhetorical analyses all of but one of our stakeholders thinks that NCAA athletes should receive some form of compensation. A big problem that always comes into play with this seemingly simple solution is a violation of Title IX. Since this is a federal law it is a large obstacle when it comes to proposing plans regarding paying college athletes. However, there are ways to compensate athletes that would not violate this law. One solution we have discussed that could be a possible topic of our documentary would be allowing athletes to profit off of themselves. This means that they would be able to sell merchandise, autographs, or sign endorsement deals. This would give each college athlete their own choice as to if and how they decide to get paid. The goal of this documentary would be to find a simpler, easier solution than many that have already been proposed but failed to be implemented. A concern with this objective, however, may be finding the necessary primary sources. Current college athletes can't speak out on the issue so the primary sources may not be as relevant as we wish. But, there are other people we could gather our primary sources from such as regular students, faculty, or coaches at a lower level. Overall, this is a possible direction our group could go in for the documentary, but might also prove to be more difficult than we would like.