College athletes are the busiest college students out there and they are constantly on themove missing class and traveling all across the country. One man, author Marc Edelman, wrote“21 Reasons Why Student-Athletes Are Employees And Should Be Allowed To Unionize,”published on Forbes in 2014. He tells us 21 reason why college athletes should be getting paid.On average a division 1 college football player spends 43.3 hours practicing, playing, and lifting.Which is 3.3 hours more than the average american work week. That is crazy because if anaverage american is working all week and earning thousands of dollars every pay period. So,why are athletes not getting any money even though they are paid for what they are doing duringthe week
?In his article he states on how much money the NCAA is earning every year fromdifferent sports. They even earn more money than some major sports all together. Because, rightnow the NCAA currently produces nearly $11 Billion annually. Which is more than the NationalBasketball Association and the National Hockey League. Also, he adds how just the Alabamafootball team by themselves earns more money that all National Hockey League and 25 or the 30National Basketball Association teams. Alabama is one of the most powerful college footballprograms in the country and they are earning millions of dollars every year. He refers to theAlabama football program multiple times because of just how popular they are and how many people buy their merchandise, go to there games.
Alabama football coach is the highest paid coach and according to Forbes, “University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban’s new contract will pay him over $7 million per year from his university”.Even the coaches for all of the high major college football programs make $2.05 million on average every year. The coaches are earning millions of dollars but the players are the ones that are making the coaches keep their jobs.
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So, all in all they should be the ones that are getting paid.Throughout all of his facts, Edelman uses ethos a lot to gain credibility with his information. He gains a lot of his credibility from the Baruch College, Zicklin School ofBusiness where he is now a professor and has wrote more than 25 nationally known articles on sports law matters. Because Edelman now he is a professor at a very prestigious university he has now gained the reputation from just going there. Also, now that is he is a very famous writer in the sports world that gains him even more credibility from his peers.
Along with a strong ethos appeal, he also has a very strong logos appeal, with many facts and statistics. He adds facts about how much money college sports is earning annually: “TheNCAA currently produces nearly $11 Billion in annual revenue from college sports — more than the estimated total league revenues of both the National Basketball Association and the NationalHockey League”. This supports his claim that college athletes are like employees and should begetting paid. Edelman even adds more statistics: “At some schools, the road to the NCAA men’s basketball championship may require student-athletes to miss up to a quarter of all class days during their Spring semester.As well as: Although the NCAA claims college athletes are just students, the NCAA’s own tournament schedules require college athletes to miss classes for nationally televised games that bring in revenue”.
These statistics are few of many that logically support his claim that college athletes are more like employees and should be getting paid. All of his statistics and details build an appeal to logos and will intrigue readers about this topic and will want to read more about it.Along with a strong logos appeals, Edelman effectively makes his appeals to pathos in some of his statistics later in the article. The quote that appeals to pathos the most in the article is, “Of course, there are many colleges that use their athletes as core marketers of the university.If not for college basketball players, think about how much more money Gonzaga University would need to spend on building name recognition to prospective students not located on theWest Coast”.
This appeals to pathos the most because it is telling that we have the athletes to-thank for people that do not live in the west coast to go to Gonzaga University which is located in Spokane, Washington. This isn’t shown when people are applying to go here but it is written in the fine print so to say. Also, if it wasn’t for the athletes Gonzaga University would have to raise its tuition all together and that could steer even more students away from going there. He also adds a opinion on how a athletes sport is more like a job, “With these factors in mind, Division I football and men’s basketball players do not merely play a sport of leisure. Rather, they are core members of their university’s marketing team, as well as the labor force behind a lucrative secondary industry in hosting organized sporting events”.
This also impacts pathos because if high school prospects knew exactly what they were getting into then that could make them rethink about playing division 1 college basketball or football. Once they get to that pointand the experience what it’s really like then they will feel like they should be getting something out of what they are doing for there university. Then, once they’re done with college sports and if they don’t go pro and get a job, it’s going to feel like they’re back on the same schedule as they were when they were playing sports.
Throughout the article Edelman does a good job of supporting his claim that college athletes are being treated more like employees and should be getting paid. He always kept the same tone throughout the article which is good for readers. He never steers away from his topic, he always is supporting his facts with even more information. Edelman did a pretty good job of convincing me that college athletes are being treated more like employees and should be paid
