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Alex Barlow
Professor Harold Blanco
First Year Seminar (FYS)
16 September 2014
Investigating Unionizing Student Athletes Article Claims
This year, a big concern in college sports is how the athletes are starting to feel as
though they deserve to be compensated for their hard work on the field, court, or
whatever it may be. I must say that it was hard to find information on the topic, due to the
fact that most, including some good resources, were not qualified to give information
because they are not properly credited to do so. I looked at several articles to assist me in
my evaluation of the one main article; unfortunately, all but one was not reliable,
including the main article. They required some crucial details such as an author,
credentials, experience, no bias, etc.
The first article I looked at was from the Newsday (New York) paper. The title of
the editorial is Athletes aren’t blind to the billions they earn for the NCAA. A change is
coming… The author of the article is Michael Dobie, who is a member of the editorial
board for the newspaper. I could not find any credible sources for a biography on
Michael. Apparently, this is not a credible author, if there are no sources to prove where
his knowledge comes from.
The article is about how college athletes are getting fed up with the fact that they
bring in billions of dollars for the NCAA with minimal to no reward. It basically states
that the price these athletes pay to be a part of the NCAA is nothing more than a

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scholarship, which can be taken away at the drop of a hat. Unfortunately, the scholarships
do not cover the cost of everything. The athletes feel as though they should be paid more
in the means of a stipend, guaranteed four-year scholarships, and money for their likeness
to be included in things such as video games. There is definitely bias present in this
article. What I got from it is that it leans more toward unionization of college athletes
stating, “It’s about time.” (Dobie A36) Therefore, I feel as though this editorial is
inefficient and not credible.
I went into more depth about the subject and looked at a few more articles. The
first I looked at is a law journal from the University of Duke. The title is Unionizing
NCAA Division I Athletics: A Viable Solution? (Rohith 727-53) The author of the
journal is Rohith Parasuraman.
I feel as though this journal, though it is written for a law journal for Duke
University, is not credible because of the dates. True, it may have been credible for its
time, but it was written in 2007. Rules have more than likely changed since then.
Another article I looked at was called Paying College Athletes. The author is
Reed Karaim. The article was published on July 11, 2014. So, It is pretty recent. It’s
about how the athletes at Northwestern University voted to unionize, and it was approved
that they could because they are “employees of the university.” (Karaim 577-600) It is
basically talking about how some people think that college athletes should get paid more
than just a scholarship, which sometimes does not even pay for all of their schooling, for
playing sports for the said colleges.

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This article, I feel is credited the way it should be because it has all of the
requirements for it to be a credited source. It came from a good website. The date is
recent. The author has good standing, according to his biography from the website, which
also has credibility.
The article has many arguments to be discussed within the article such as the
effects of too much sport and not enough academics and the pros and cons of unionizing
(discussed by two experienced men, having been working around sports and the NCAA
for years). They talk about how studies show that most football and basketball players lag
in academics due to sports dedication. Some of the pros of the subject are that college
athletes should be paid to use their likeness, for commercials, for camps, etc. The amount
of a scholarship just does not cut it. Some of the cons are that the athletes are choosing to
be a part of the collegiate sports. They also state how the claims that the programs are
making loads of money are false, to a certain extent. They say that only “a fraction”
(Karaim 577-600) of the programs bring money, and some of them end up having to pay
at the universities’ expense.
Another few articles I found were Unions Don’t Belong in College Sports by The
Detroit News (Detroit, Michigan), Letting College Athletes Organize is Not the Answer
to Problems in Sports by The Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah), NLRB Ruling in
Northwestern Football Case Puts NCAA on the Clock by The Oregonian (Portland,
Oregon), and Sack the Idea of Unionizing College Athletes by The Las Vegas Review-
Journal (Las Vegas, Nevada). They are very recent articles. They were all published in
2014; however, I deem these articles not credible because they do not meet the

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qualifications of being resourceful. True, they have some good points, but you have to
have a good publish, which they do not. You have to have experienced authors for these
articles, which it does not state they have.
The next one I researched is from The Detroit News. It talks about how allowing
student athletes to unionize would cause a strain to them and NCAA. It is not a very
reliable source because it has no listed author; it has no citation materials besides the title
of the newspaper. It is also biased in its views.
The next article I researched was from The Deseret News. It also does not include
the same things as the previous paragraph, making it non reliable. The article is about
how sports has “evolved” (World News Digest) differently in the United States, and by
differently, I mean how it has became slightly more important than academics.
Another article I viewed was the one from The Oregonian. It talks about how they
think it is a good idea to unionize and get compensation. Again in this paragraph, bias is
present. No author or publisher is present in the article. Thus, the article is not very
capable.
The final article I sifted through was the one by The Las Vegas Review-Journal.
This article is about how they think unions are bad and have brought down academics
and made dents in government funding. Also, it says they are staring to go after athletics.
First I would like to say that this article is no different than the three in front of it. They
lack the same things that give them a credible standpoint.

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In the end, I could not find but a few articles on the subject, all together. The main
article for the analysis definitely was not credible. However, one article I did find was
conclusive. I used what resources I had to determine the standing of each of the articles I
went through. I have concluded that it is difficult to find the resources that you need
because few are qualified to produce any iota of information.