Pay College Athletes, and Whether or Not

¶ … pay college athletes, and whether or not they are being exploited for their work on the field, remains a hot topic of contention in both scholarly and mainstream media. Both mainstream media and scholarly literature address a wide range of topics related to the issue of student-athlete compensation, albeit with the scholarly literature focusing more on financial data and legal analyses too technical for publication in popular magazines.

In "Exploitation in College Sports," for example, Van Rheenen (2013) discusses the ways it may be possible to measure exploitation quantitatively using a calculation based on surplus value and marginal revenue product. Van Rheenen (2013) also includes the issue of race in college sports, discussing the graduation rate disparity and other "cultural divisions of opportunity," p. 550). In the Time magazine cover story on the same topic, Gregory (2013) avoids the issue of race but spends considerable time arguing in favor of compensating student-athletes.

Gregory (2013) and Van Rheenen (2013) analyze the topic contemporaneously, making these two articles worthy points of comparison between the two types of literature on the subject. In spite of their stylistic differences, both Gregory (2013) and Van Rheenen (2013) conclude that student-athletes are being exploited, and that the system of college sports should be restructured accordingly. The issue of exploitation is central to the debate on whether student-athletes should be paid or not. Exploitation has both "philosophical and psychological implications," as Van Rheenen (2013) points out (p. 550).

The definition of exploitation is, according to Van Rheenen (2013), "primarily a moral construct understood as an unfair exchange between two parties," (p. 550). In the case of student-athletes, the unfair exchanges is the fact that the students have a financial value to the school, but receive nothing beyond the basic tuition, room, and board offered. Likewise, Gregory focuses on the issue of exploitation but does not offer as erudite a definition as Ven Rheenen's. Instead, Gregory (2013) uses anecdotal evidence and rhetorical questions to raise the ethical and moral problems.

"Why shouldn't a player worth so much to his school, to his town and to the college-football brand be able to sign his name for money, just as any other celebrity has a right to do?" (1). Gregory (2013) also quotes a Stanford economist Roger Noll, who noted "the rising dollar value of the exploitation of athletes," which is "obscene" and "out of control," (p. 2). Whereas Van Rheenen (2013) avoids hyperbole and informal language like "obscene" and "out of control," Gregory (2013) uses such rhetorical devices to appeal to the mainstream readership of Time.

Instead of using anecdotes and emotionally laden language to lure readers, Van Rheenen (2013) relies on factual evidence. Yet a closer examination of the rhetorical strategies Van Rheenen (2013) uses shows that there are subtle cues used to sway the reader. The word "exploitation" itself is an evocative and potentially inflammatory one. After all, opponents of paying student-athletes do not believe the students are being exploited because they are receiving an education and the opportunity to play sports at the same time.

Gregory (2013) also mentions that the scholarships "are a serious meal ticket and for many families are the only way their children can afford to go to a four-year school," (p. 3). The student-athletes on scholarships receive an education they might not have had access to otherwise. However, because their entry to school is based on athletic ability alone, it can become difficult for these students to succeed off the field (Van Rheenen, 2013).

Gregory (2013) agrees, noting "most scholarships are revocable, so if an athlete doesn't perform well on the field, he can, in a sense, be fired from college," (p. 3). Again, Gregory's (2013) language, style, and diction are different from that of Van Rheenen (2013), but their overall message is the same. Whereas Gregory (2013) spends a good deal of time discussing stories like those of Manziel and also NCAA history, Van Rheenen (2013) achieves the goal of proving exploitation exists by discussing race in the same article.

In particular, Van Rheenen (2013) claims there is an "over-representation of Black college athletes on revenue-producing teams, and the corresponding lower graduation rates of this population when compared to other students," suggesting that African-American students are not receiving the same value for their work as their white counterparts (p. 550). Gregory (2013) does not mention.