Rhetorical Analysis: Athletes Make A Lot Of Money

Can a price really be placed on talent? This question was posed by one critic who believes that athletes deserve their high salaries. Recently, there has been a controversial discussion over athletes being paid too much. This controversy was discussed in a video, “Life After Football,” an article, “Athletes Make a LOT of Money,” by Jesse Edelman, and another article, “You Can’t Put a Price on Talent,” by Mackenzie Carro. While the authors presented their arguments to the same audience, they used different rhetorical devices to persuade the audience to support their claim. Although the authors each reveal arguments to support the claims in each source, the manner in which the evidence was presented to the audience was not completely the same.

To begin, all three sources clearly address the same audience, specifically those people who may be critical of how much athletes are paid. The authors do not directly address their audience, but it is clear from reading the articles and viewing the video because the evidence provided is meant to persuade the audience to agree with their side of the debate. A second similarity is noticed between the video and “Athletes Make a LOT of Money.” Both sources use a logos rhetorical appeal to persuade their audiences. Edelman says in the article that the average income of a family is $54,000 while the average salary for a professional athlete is between $2 and $5 million a year. Similarly, the documentary uses a logos appeal when it stuns the audience with results of a survey that say 42% of the surveyed athletes say that their biggest challenge in life is dealing with injuries from playing, and a whopping 57% of players experienced a concussion while participating in professional sports. The evidence provided in each article is clearly concerning opposing sides, but the authors of each chose to use the method of a logos appeal to draw the audience in and convince them further with a logical appeal. A final characteristic that all three sources share is the mention of injuries associated with being a professional athlete. “Life After Football” shows

One difference is in the video documentary; there was a clear use of an ethos rhetorical appeal as obvious experts in the world of professional athletes were interviewed. One retired player said, “I have so much arthritis developed from injuries there are some days I have trouble walking and functioning and I am embarrassed of what my body looks like now.” These experts provided real life scenarios that they experience, making the argument seem very valid and credible. The other two sources, the articles, did not bring in any type of expert in to weigh in on the argument. Doing so in the video gave the audience a clear picture of what some of the athletes experience and works well to persuade them to chose a side of the controversy by creating a more credible argument. A second difference among these sources would be amount of evidence that the authors used to support their reasons. The article “You Can’t Put a Price on Talent” includes information from one outside source (Newsday). The author does not provide adequate information to fully support the claim that athletes are not overpaid. The author, Mackenzie Carro, only used one credible source, Newsday, to support her argument. Whereas, the article “Athletes Make a LOT of Money” and the video include multiple forms of