Synthesis Essay: Corporate Sponsorship
Corporate businesses sponsor just about everything: professional sports teams and stadiums, theaters, music halls, dance performances, art galleries, museums. Everywhere you look you will see ads for energy drinks, make-up, radio shows, you name it. Though sponsorship is for the most part accepted in everyday life, corporate sponsorship in high school can be controversial. There are both pros and cons to it. It benefits the schools by providing much needed funding especially for art and music programs. It can also provide specialized equipment that the schools might not have otherwise. Corporate sponsorship does also have downsides. Most of corporate scholarships go towards sports which already typically
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Corporate scholarships often only provide only one option or brand for the school and students. For example, it gatorade was to sponsor a high school sports team, they would only provide gatorade products. They would not supply nuun or hammer product. They may also require that the sports team only use that drink. In this situation, though the supplying of a sports drink is helpful, the sports drink that is supplied may not be the healthiest or the one the students prefer. Situations such as this are not limited to only sports drinks. They demonstrate that though sponsorships could be helpful, they were also limiting. Sponsorships also were often focused on sports, not on the arts, the branches which need monetary support the most. To continue, scholarships, as mentioned above limit students’ option. That is the main argument against corporate scholarships. Students should have the right to choose whatever brand they wish. Also, schools are supposed to be places of learning not places for students to be influenced by ads.
Overall, corporate sponsorships should not be accepted by schools because they have more cons than pros. Though they can supply needed funds they can limit students’ choices and don’t always help the departments in schools that really need the assistance. There are other ways that schools can get money besides corporate sponsorships. Schools could apply to get money from their state, town, or city or apply for scholarships. They should opt for these routes that maintains schools as neutral places of