Research Freewrite

An ongoing debate throughout recent years is whether professional athletes get paid too much money. Many people claim that it is unfair for professional athletes to make more money than other occupations, such as teachers, military, police officers, and firemen. These other occupations play significant roles in our society and without them our society would not be what it is today. Therefore, people say professional athletes do not contribute much to our society so they should not be paid near as much. Other people argue that professional athletes help provide money to our economy with all the money that goes into professional sports and therefore deserve the amount of money they make. I am going to examine the negative effects that the high salaries of professional athletes has had on athletes and on sports. These negative effects include lockouts, increasing ticket prices, players going bankrupt, and more. My preliminary thesis is the high salaries of professional athletes have negatively affected sports and athletes.

Throughout my research, I want to look at the salaries of professional athletes in previous years and how they have increased throughout the century. I also want to find information on lockouts of different sports and how they were related to salaries. I want to find information on former athletes and where they stand financially after having a very large salary. I will attempt to find how these high salaries have had a negative impact on the fans. I need to find newspaper and magazine articles.

The most difficult part of this assignment would be finding opinions on why professional athletes do deserve a high salary. Almost everyone says athletes are paid too much, but there are very few people that say they deserve a high salary so this will be my most difficult task.

Research Paper Sources

http://blogs.payscale.com/ask_dr_salary/2007/06/pro_athletes_an.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/10-ways-sports-stars-destroy-their-finances-2009-9#

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-07-10/opinion/greene.football.basketball_1_owners-lockouts-athletes?_s=PM:OPINION

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3592783?seq=1

http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=DA-SORT&inPS=true&prodId=AONE&userGroupName=clemson_itweb&tabID=T003&searchId=R1&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=1&contentSet=GALE%7CA20518001&&docId=GALE|A20518001&docType=GALE&role=

http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/?shr=t&csi=8213&sr=HLEAD(Players+alienate+their+faithful+fans)+and+date+is+August,%202002

http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/?shr=t&csi=152786&sr=HLEAD(Athletes%27+salaries+make+no+sense)+and+date+is+October,%202010

http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/?shr=t&csi=8176&sr=HLEAD(Fans+pay+big+price+for+allure+of+stars+Ticket+costs+rising+as+free+agents+sign)+and+date+is+December,%202000

http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/?shr=t&csi=144579&sr=HLEAD(Are+lockouts%2C+labor+wars+new+normal+in+sports+world%3F)+and+date+is+July,%202011

Research Topics

The first research topic that I am interested in is "Have the large salaries of professional athletes had a negative impact on the athletes or sport?" This question is very relevant in today's time because of all the lockouts that have occurred recently. The NFL was in a lockout for such a long time, and the NBA is currently in the middle of a lockout. Nowadays, the news always reports different athletes refusing to participate in a team's activities because they want more money or a better contract. It seems that the athletes have lost the love for the game the athletes of the past lived for. This topic is interesting to me because I love sports so it is definitely a topic that will not bore me. My argument in this topic is that I would say that the large salaries have impacted sports in a negative way over the past years.

The second research topic that I am interested in is "Should college football change to a playoff system?" When bowl season comes around every year, there is talk about changing to a playoff system for college football. It would be similar to that of the college basketball March Madness tournament but without as many teams. People always say there is controversy with the BCS system and how it calculates the winners, so moving to a playoff system would remove this problem. Like the previous topic, this topic relates to sports, which is why I would want to do it. This topic is an ongoing discussion in today's society so it is definitely a relevant topic. My argument would be that I do believe college football should move to a playoff system.

Either one of the topics would be a good choice for a research paper because of their relevancy in today's time. Both of these topics have a lot of information that could be used during the research.

Thesis

     This anti-smoking advertisement immediately grasps the attention of the audience by relating a cigarette to a lethal bullet in the sense of both being alternate forms of suicide, and it also appeals to the audience through the use of offering help with the phone number to aid smokers attempting to quit.

Image ideas

Women and Advertising

     Advertising has come a very long way over the years. Advertisements effectively appeal to viewers in many different ways, some of which include humor, famous celebrities or athletes, and gorgeous women. Almost everybody hears the saying "sex sells" at some point during his or her life. This is definitely one of the most effective tactics for advertising, however, this tactic can have drastic effects on females of all ages. Advertisements featuring beautiful women plant the idea in every female's head that they must look that way to be considered "normal" in today's world. Susie Orbach strongly opposes these sort of advertisements because of the negative effects they have on women. Working together, Dove and Susie Orbach successfully help to change the idea that not all women have to look like the ones pictured in advertisements in everyday life.

     In order to change society's view on women, Dove called in Susie Orbach to help them promote a new line of advertising. They used many techniques in order to get their point across. One of the effective techniques they used was the video of the daughters of the executives. These young girls talked about the things that they wish they could change about their bodies. The people watching that video easily could see how today's society molded these girls' thinking of how to be accepted. This strongly targeted the emotions of the people viewing the video because of how sad it is that girls so young felt the need to change their appearance to feel accepted. It is very mentally unhealthy for these young girls to be thinking this way. Many of them are still young and naive and should not be worried about how they look, but they cannot help but to do so because of all the advertisements they come across every day.
     Not only is it mentally unhealthy for females to constantly worry about their appearance, but it can also be physically unhealthy too. Many women believe the only way to look thinner is to not eat much food, which causes many to develop bad eating disorders. These eating disorders can, and most likely will, cause these females to start suffering with many health problems. Reducing the amount of advertisements containing all the beautiful women would most likely reduce the number of women that get involved in these eating disorders. There would be much less pressure on them to look like the women in the advertisements.
     Susie Orbach and Dove definitely made a significant change in the advertising industry of the world today but much more can still be done. By making advertisements that include women that are more like typical women in today's society definitely helps to improve self esteem of women everywhere. They would feel more comfortable with the way they look rather than being forced into thinking they need to have the perfect body to be considered beautiful. Dove's advertisements also got many more people involved in this issue. The more people to get involved, the better chance they will have at effectively changing advertising that we know today to picture more realistic and everyday people. This will not only help women out, but it will help improve society as a whole.