Paying College Athletes Summary

Don't understand why college athletes should be paid? Let me give you a hypothetical.

Imagine an owner of a company that is predominantly made up of unpaid interns. These interns are subject to some of the most physically demanding duties in their work environment, and risk blood and body everyday. At their work place they are constantly verbally and physically harassed often in a demeaning matter, and are evaluated solely on their superficial talents. Despite the fact that their boss occasionally makes more $100 million, he refuses to pay his interns. The interns therefore, without enough time in the day to work another job, fall deeper into poverty.

Now, most would agree that the above stated working environment is something that should not be endured by anyone. However, it is. Not only has it become an excepted work place in our society, but every Saturday 100,000 fans cheer for it at America’s coliseums. Ridiculous right?

College football players in the NCAA risk their well being everyday for no pay. They put on pads and a helmet to play games that rack in millions of dollars for their schools, yet often return home to a family that couldnt even afford to go tothe game. This is an issue that has been discussed by many sportswriters and bloggers alike, and it is why I chose to do my Junior Theme on this topic.

Rooting for the underdog

March Madness is upon us, and it is time to fill out your bracket. After I completed my first go, I realized that I had all #1 seeds in the final four. In the history of the tournament, this has happened once (2008). So, I thought why not pick a couple of Cinderella's to upset them early on? I always love rooting for the underdogs in the tournament because it makes it interesting, but when I think about it, people should want to root for a good, winning team. So why pick the underdog?

Recent Cinderella VCU celebrating an upset

Researchers have found plenty of support for what seems like an obvious notion: In sports, we're drawn to a winner. Other factors (like where you live and who your friends are) can influence your choice of a favorite team.  Team success is kind of like the icing on the cake at that point

Which brings us to that peculiar situation, so common in college basketball, where too much icing ruins the cake. In 1991, a pair of researchers at Bowling Green State University, Jimmy Frazier and Eldon Snyder, published a paper called "The Underdog Concept in Sports". They posed a simple hypothetical scenario to more than 100 college students: Two teams, A and B, were meeting in a best-of-seven playoff series for some unidentified sport, and Team A was "highly favored" to win. Which team would the students root for?

Eighty-one percent chose the underdog.

Then the students were asked to imagine that Team B had somehow managed to win the first three games of the series. Would the subjects root for the sweep or switch allegiance to the favorite? Half of those who first picked the underdog now said they'd support Team A. It was the same, ridiculous approach I am taking this year, rooting for #15 Detroit to upset #2 Kansas. Let's go Titans!

Who watches what?

How come we watch so much TV?

Maybe because it is there. But analysts have studied the appeal of various TV categories, and advertisers and TV networks have invested tons of money in attempts to reach audience categories of a particular age, sex or income level. Studying TV Tokenism, we step into the mostly unknown world of TV programming.

Most of these efforts have focused on answering the question, "Who watches?" But analysts have gone beyond the demographic categories to focus on how television viewing fits in with other leisure time decisions including other media choices like movies, magazines, newspapers and sports events.

Even a basic look at the categories creates some common assumptions. For example, young, blue-collar males watch TV sports less frequently than any other male group. African american viewers watch more television but also read the highest percentage of newspapers. Teenage boys like programs that poke fun at male authority figures, perhaps because they want to see someone "stick up to the man". 

This rebel is sometimes caused by parents, teachers, or any other adult that has some control of their life. At one point in our lives we always wanted to stick prove ourselves that we are in control, and perhaps for some young adults they turn to these TV shows for guidance. 

For us students, we are starting to reach the young adult age group, so get ready to watch much more sports and prime time television.

Scrubs

Source




Scrubs
NBC (2001-2008)
ABC (2009-2010)

Donald Faison (far right) won 2 BET Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a comedy. Faison was in every single episode (182), while Zach Braff (main character, middle), was only in 175. Faison plays Braff's best friend, and they are almost always together joking around (that's what the show is based off of).


I believe that this show is an example that goes against Mr. Bolos' thesis. One of the main characters of the show is African American (Faison). Faison's character goes through struggles that are considered normal. He and his wife have relationship issues, he is starting a family (having kids) with his wife, and he is also worried about his career path (he ends up becoming Chief of Surgery). Although the show is a comedy, it consistently aired from between 7:30 and 8:30 on network channels. At one point, the show was getting easily just as many views as many network dramas. However, in its last couple of seasons, the viewership definitely dwindled off.

Google Glasses? Really?

People who reach into their pocket to check a smartphone for information will soon have another option: a pair of Google-made glasses that will be able to receive and project information to the wearer’s eyeballs in real time.

According to several Google employees familiar with the project, the glasses will go on sale to the public by the end of the year. These people said they are expected “to cost around the price of current smart phones,” or $250 to $600.

The people familiar with the Google glasses said they would be Android-based, and will include a small screen that will sit a few inches from someone’s eye. They will also have a 3G or 4G data connection. 

Now, I am all for new technology that makes things easier on people (like smartphones), but c'mon, this seems a little ridiculous. Having a screen a couple of inches away from your face so you can be updated on your Facebook, Twitter, or whatever other information you need seems kind of ridiculous. Personally, I don't have a Facebook or Twitter because I find it is ridiculously time consuming (time which I could be doing much better things), so I find these glasses completely ridiculous. To the average social network user thinking of getting these glases, are you really to lazy to walk to your computer, or grab your phone from your pocket, or even pull your tablet out of your backpack just so you can stay updated on your internet life?

If anyone reading this thinks this is a cool idea for some new technology, I would love to hear your opinion on my paragraph above.