College Athletes Should Be Paid Analysis

Nowadays, we've seen many universities’ competitions on the television as a leisure performance but we've never concerned whether they receive their pay. In Mike Benedykciuk's article "The Blue Line: College Athletes Should be Paid," he argues that student athletes should receive the wage though they are not professional. Like any good writer, he employs special word choices, statistics and rhetorical devices to plead with the audience to take his side. In this article, he demonstrates many such devices, which will be explained further as follows.
In a bid to comprehensively develop the central claim, the author use several careful word choices. The word "Paper Classes" and its explanation mention in the 5th paragraph vividly shows how author

is good at using precise words to illustrate his argument. By mentioning paper classes, students only need to hand in final paper without meet for whole term, author clearly shows student athletes didn't receive an adequate education and criticizes NCCA's reaction: students athletes don’t have payment. By using this word, author evoke readers’ indignation. Also, the word “a quick buck” in paragraph 3 mainly illustrates that famous athletes earn huge money only by signing their name on jerseys which compares to student athletes who get no wages but spend a lot effort. Therefore, this is unfair for students’ athlete get no compensation for their.
Statistic is a key component of this passage to persuade the audience. One of the most persuasive sentence, “The 2014 NCAA men’s basketball tournament accumulated 1.15 billion in ad revenue, 200 million more than the NBA Playoffs that same year,” vividly shows readers the organization actually receive a variety of finance from ads. By showing the data, readers may confused where this numerous money being used and by receiving such money why student athletes didn’t get any payment. As we all know being an athlete should make their efforts, the data in the sentence detailedly show how strive they are. “The average Division I football player dedicates over 43 hours per week to his sport, meaning that he spends more than a typical American work-week training and playing football, in addition to his classwork.” 43 hours per week to the sport really bring readers an impression how hard- working they are, and feel sympathy for their zero- earning situation. As a nutshell, this is ridiculous that student athletes didn’t receive any payment though they spend most of their time on practicing.
Rhetorical device are what make the passage successful, the use of which indeed captures the reader.

In paragraph 4, “It amazes me that the NCAA, a nonprofit organization, can accumulate over $11 billion in annual revenues- more than both the NHL and NBA- and not give any of it to its ‘student athletes’.” When the audiences read the sentence, they will catch up the word “nonprofit” which is deliberately written by the author in order to irony the NCCA’s public image. Also by contrasting nonprofit a profit organization, the author emphasize that nonprofit organization accumulate more than both profit organization which make the audience consider it more deliberately. To make it more persuasive, the author use hyperbole to show how student athlete face on this condition. “The University of Alabama reported income of over $143 billion in 2014. Although that profit margin was greater than all 30 NHL teams and 25 of the 30 NBA teams, not one of Alabama’s player received a dollar.” Since the university receive such money, their player didn’t receive “a dollar”, as a hyperbole, the author is totally successful. He criticizes the university’s payment for player at the competition. Therefore, by using rhetorical devices audiences will clearly understand the condition that university earn profits but won’t give payment for student

athletes.
From what has been analyzed above, we can notice that Mike uses various devices to build and support his argument, including careful word choice, undeniable precise statistic, effective rhetorical devices, all of which obviously make this article worthy of recognition. In other words, once one reads the article, they will be nodding along with Mike Benedykciuk’s idea that student athletes should receive the wage, and it is not for no reason.