Brandon Stinson
Mrs. Adams
English 101
16 October, 2012
Too Much? For my Argument Text Analysis, I chose the essay “Do Professional Athletes Get Paid Too Much Money?” by Mihir Baghat. This particular essay is about how athletes make way more money than they deserve and how wrong that is due to the fact that the American society is a place where salaries and wages are based on the value of ones’ work and that a person should be paid according to the economic importance and value to society. By writing “Do Professional Athletes Get Paid Too Much Money?” Baghat is trying to inform the reader about the amount of money professional athletes are making now a day and that they should get paid a lot less. He is doing this by giving examples of jobs that he thinks deserve a lot more money than what professional athletes are getting paid. Teachers are great examples of this. Baghat states that “Teaching is one of the most economically important occupations if you really think about it. Our future economies rely on how well we educate our youth, and yet teachers are paid a mere fraction of what a professional athlete receives” (Baghat). Another example is when Baghat talks about President Obama and how he gets paid a lot less than professional athletes even though the President makes important decisions affecting the entire world. This essay is very one-sided at times but overall it does achieve its goal of convincing the reader that professional athletes get paid too much and that the amounts of money being spent on paying these professionals could be better used to pay the valued, hard-working people of America’s job system. The tone of this essay is serious; Baghat feels very strongly about the subject matter he is presenting. The language that he uses is very easy to understand and is determining, he writes it for people who may not feel the same way he does but is clear enough that every type of audience will understand. The author addresses the opposition’s opinion in the essay. The objecting opinion is taken from an excerpt in the essay where Baghat clarifies himself: “Don’t mistake what I’m saying for some sense that these athletes have had it easy getting where they are, either. I fully understand that making it to the pros isn’t an easy thing to accomplish. It takes a tremendous amount of dedication and talent on the part of the athlete, not to mention an incredible number of hours of hard work every day just to earn the privilege” (Baghat). He goes on to discuss that all professional athletes do is entertain and that isn’t worth what we are paying them. Baghat briefly gives voice to his opposition and then argues against them, giving him ethos. Baghat also has ethos for two other reasons: for one, he is an award winning author and a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. More importantly, it is obvious Baghat has done his research on professional athletes getting paid too much. Many of the statistics shown in the essay are accurate and took time to research. This essay consists of logos. One example of the evidence presented is when Baghat makes reference to the fact that Kobe Bryant, a professional basketball player, makes more money than the President of the United States by saying Barack Obama “makes approximately $400,000 a year” (Baghat). Another example of logos would be when the author brings up the Oakland Raiders number one overall pick, JaMarcus Russell, who turned out to be a complete bust but still go paid ($31 million) in guaranteed money. As well as having examples of ethos and logos, the author also has an example of pathos. One example is when he says “Those in the military leave their families at home for months at a time to defend and protect our country’s freedoms, knowing they may never return, and all for a pittance compared to what even many scrubs in the NBA make” (Baghat). By saying this, Baghat wants the reader to feel sorry for the military soldiers that go off to war. I believe the argument is presented in a logical, organized way that is convincing. However, if there were a few other examples of the opposition in which the opposition stated that professional athletes don’t choose what they get paid, they take whatever their owners are willing to give them; the essay might have been more effective. Something that the essay did particularly well was including certain amounts of money that these professionals get paid and relate it to other jobs that don’t get paid as much as they should. I think this is important because it shows the reader facts and then goes on to say how much more these other jobs, like the President or a firefighter, do more than an athlete but get paid much less. My stance on the issue of whether athletes get paid too much or not is similar to Baghat; I believe that athletes are a little overpaid. I don’t necessarily agree with them being way overpaid because I know they work extremely hard if not harder on what they do for a living than that of a police officer or a school teacher. With that being said, I still think that for being just an entertainer, the amount of money they are paid is a little high. If professional athletes would give back to the community more than they do, I think the amount of money they are earning would be well worth it. In conclusion, I believe Baghat did an excellent job writing “Do Professional Athletes Get Paid Too Much Money?” and that it contained an appropriate amount of ethos, pathos, and logos. Overall this essay effectively achieved its goals of informing readers about highly paid professional athletes and persuading them that they do indeed get paid too much. I can’t speak for all of Baghat’s readers, but I was definitely convinced and believe that this essay is a must read for anyone who questions whether professional athletes get paid too much or not.

Works Sited
Baghat, Mihir. “Do Professional Athletes Get Paid Too Much Money?.” General Sports. N.P..
Web. 15 October 2012.