Should College Athletes Be Paid? Scholarly vs. Media Analysis
This paper compares two works addressing the compensation of college athletes: Van Rheenen's (2013) scholarly article "Exploitation in College Sports," published in the International Review for the Sociology of Sport, and Gregory's (2013) Time magazine cover story arguing in favor of paying student-athletes. Despite their differences in audience, rhetorical strategy, and evidence, both authors conclude that student-athletes are being exploited and that the current system of college sports warrants reform. The paper examines how each author defines exploitation, handles race, addresses the right of publicity, and deploys rhetorical devices to persuade their respective audiences.
- Introduction: A Debate Across Two Literatures: Introduces both sources and their shared conclusion
- Defining Exploitation in College Sports: Compares each author's definition of exploitation
- Rhetorical Strategies: Scholarly Evidence vs. Anecdote: Contrasts factual and emotional rhetorical approaches
- Scholarships, Revocability, and the Limits of Compensation: Examines scholarship value and its conditional nature
- Race, Revenue, and the Right of Publicity: Analyzes race disparities and publicity rights cases
- Conclusion: Two Audiences, One Argument: Evaluates both authors' effectiveness for their audiences
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- The paper maintains a clear, consistent comparative framework, evaluating both sources against the same criteria — definition of exploitation, use of rhetorical devices, treatment of race, and policy implications — rather than summarizing each source in isolation.
- It balances acknowledgment of counterarguments (e.g., the value of athletic scholarships) with a return to the central thesis, demonstrating intellectual honesty without undermining the argument.
- The contrast between popular and scholarly rhetoric is well illustrated through specific textual examples, including direct quotations from both sources.
Key academic technique demonstrated
This paper models source synthesis effectively. Rather than treating the two articles as separate summaries, the writer consistently brings them into dialogue, identifying points of agreement and divergence on the same underlying issues. This is a fundamental skill in comparative literature reviews and analytical essays.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by situating both sources in the broader debate, then moves through thematic comparisons: definitions of exploitation, rhetorical strategy, the value and limits of scholarships, race and representation, and the right of publicity. A brief conclusion evaluates both authors' effectiveness relative to their audiences. The structure is thematic rather than source-by-source, which strengthens the comparative argument throughout.
Introduction: A Debate Across Two Literatures
Whether to pay college athletes — and whether they are being exploited for their work on the field — remains a hotly contested topic in both scholarly and mainstream media. Both types of literature address a wide range of issues related to student-athlete compensation, though scholarly works tend to focus on financial data and legal analyses too technical for publication in popular magazines. In "Exploitation in College Sports," for example, Van Rheenen (2013) discusses ways to measure exploitation quantitatively using calculations based on surplus value and marginal revenue product. Van Rheenen (2013) also addresses the issue of race in college sports, discussing graduation rate disparities 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. Despite 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.
Defining Exploitation in College Sports
The issue of exploitation is central to the debate on whether student-athletes should be paid. Exploitation has both "philosophical and psychological implications," as Van Rheenen (2013) points out (p. 550). According to Van Rheenen (2013), exploitation is "primarily a moral construct understood as an unfair exchange between two parties" (p. 550). In the case of student-athletes, the unfair exchange is the fact that the students have a financial value to their school but receive nothing beyond the basic tuition, room, and board offered.
Gregory (2013) likewise focuses on the issue of exploitation but does not offer as precise a definition as Van Rheenen's. Instead, Gregory (2013) uses anecdotal evidence and rhetorical questions to raise the ethical and moral problems involved in the current system.
Rhetorical Strategies: Scholarly Evidence vs. Anecdote
"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?" (Gregory, 2013, p. 1). Gregory (2013) also quotes 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 such as "obscene" and "out of control," Gregory (2013) employs such rhetorical devices to appeal to the mainstream readership of Time.
Rather than using anecdotes and emotionally charged language, Van Rheenen (2013) relies on factual evidence. Yet a closer examination of his rhetorical strategies reveals subtle cues used to sway the reader. The word "exploitation" itself is evocative and potentially inflammatory. Opponents of paying student-athletes do not believe the students are being exploited because they receive an education and the opportunity to play sports simultaneously. Gregory (2013) also acknowledges that athletic 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). Students on scholarship receive an education they might not have had access to otherwise.
Conclusion: Two Audiences, One Argument
Both Gregory (2013) and Van Rheenen (2013) offer thought-provoking analyses of how student-athletes are being exploited and why they should be paid. The authors employ different rhetorical strategies to achieve their respective goals: Van Rheenen's (2013) audience of fellow sociologists is potentially more empowered to directly impact policy, while Gregory's (2013) audience of Time readers is broader and much larger. Ultimately, both approaches are equally successful in making the case for reform.
References
Gregory, S. (2013). It's time to pay college athletes. Time, 16 September 2013.
Van Rheenen, D. V. (2013). Exploitation in college sports: Race, revenue, and educational reward. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 48(5), 550–571.
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.