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The economic importance of sport
The economic importance of sport
The economic importance of sport
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Professional athletes have been paid to play a variety of sports in over the past hundred and fifty years. Most players can manage perfectly playing the sport they love while being paid over what an average government worker (policeman, fireman, and teacher), instead they are paid massive paychecks that many people would only dream of having. The salaries of professional athletes have drastically increased ten-fold in the past 50 years and show that they earn vast amount of wealth, which in most opinions can be absurd. Athletes are paid too much for doing as little as playing the game they love to play. Having athletes being paid 5 times the income of an average household (Block) is outrageous and should be lowered.
Athletes receiving massive wages have not been around for very long, it has only been a problem for 20-30 years. An Average infielder in the 1950s only made an equivalent of $89,000 compared to $2.13 million (during 1992) an average MLB player makes a year currently (Zimbalist 92). Although the MLB was smaller in the 1950’s, the increase average MLB salaries are not proportional to the increased popularity over the years. The minimum wage for a MLB player is 32 times bigger than the minimum wage of a New Yorker. The minimum wage is $480,000 for a baseball player that mostly will sit on the bench the entire game while a standard 40 hour a week minimum wage job only pays around $15,080 (Block). Lou Gehrig was paid an equivalent of $431,000 while a utility MLB player minimum wage today makes around $50,000 above that amount (Seepersaud). Lou Gehrig, one of the most talented players in MLB history, was being paid below minimum wage of the MLB today which is very odd. Athletes back then were paid much more realistic amount...
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Bryjak, George J. "The name of the game is money." USA Today [Magazine] Sept. 1998: 67+. Student Resources in Context. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.
Haupert, Michael. "Baseball's major salary milestones.(More Modern Topics)." The Baseball Research Journal 22 Sept. 2011: n. pag. Print.
Marci, Kenneth. "Not Just a Game: Sport and Society in the United States." RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. . .
Owens, Ted. Personal interview. 12 April 2014.
Seepersaud, Steve. “Sports Salaries: Then and Now.” AskMen Web. .< http://www.askmen.com/sports/business_100/119_sports_business.html>
Zimbalist, Andrew S.. Baseball and billions: a probing look inside the big business of our national pastime. New York, NY: BasicBooks, 1992. Print.
However, if the current rules remain in place and baseball continues without a salary cap, the only hope a small market team may have is to fend for themselves on the big market with financially superior teams. This becomes an exceedingly harder task when one team can afford the salary of two top players while those contracts are equal to the entire payroll of another team’s entire roster. Therefore, the question remains should baseball implement a salary cap, and if they do, how would it come into play. When asking the question regarding the salary cap, four supporting ideas arise for either the implementation of a salary cap or keeping it nonexistent.
"Pact Ends NHL Lockout." Monthly Labor Review 118 (1995): 76. "Baseball Owners Approve Interim Revenue Sharing." Available Online: www.espnet.sportzone.com/editors/mlb/features/0321meeting.html Bergman, Ray. "My Baseball Dream.
Staudohar, Paul D. "Salary Caps in Professional Team Sports." Compensation and Working Conditions 3.1 (1998): 3-11. EBSCO Host Connection. Web. 5 Feb. 2014.
Players do not deserve the money they receive. There are people who do much more than the players do. Why do teachers not get paid millions of dollars to teach kids? Some of those kids end up going on to become professional athletes. Police officers and firemen risk their lives to keep people safe and most of them do not even make any more than 95 thousand dollars a year (Megerian). These athletes get fined more money than that and hand it over like someone just asked them for one dollar. Players have all of this money and do not even do anything worth earning it. Why do they get this money? It is because fans value athletes more than the important things in life like education and family.
Baseball developed before the Civil War but did not achieve professional status until the 1870s (The Baseball Glove, 2004). In 1871 the National Association of Professional Baseball Players was formed. Unfortunately the organization ran into financial hardships and was abandoned in 1875. The following year marked the formation of the National League of Professional Baseball Players, which was soon shortened to the National League (Ibid). In 1884 the rival American League was founded and th...
Nemee, David. “100 Years of Major League Baseball.” Lincolnwood, Illinois: Publications Infernational, Ltd, 200. Print.
Coakley, J. J. (2007). Sports in society: issues & controversies (9th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Do you think professional athletes are overpaid? You might think they earn more than what they are worth for playing half a year, but athletes have many things which contribute to their salary. Some of these things include their earnings from endorsements, ticket sales, performance, merchandise, their social contributions, and TV ratings. Although there are many factors that contribute to their salary, professional athletes may be overpaid because as a society, we contribute to their success. So, in the end, part of the athlete’s salary comes from the people who support the sports in the first place.
Do athletes get overpaid? Is it fair that the average NFL player gets paid 1.9 million dollars a year while the average heart surgeon gets paid 533 thousand dollars annually? I think that professional athletes don’t get paid too much. There are multiple reasons that proves that their pay is not excessive. Their careers are short, they risk their body for our entertainment, and they motivate children.
Jiobu, Robert M., “Racial Inequality in a Public Arena: The Case of Professional Baseball”. Social Forces , Vol. 67, No. 2 (Dec., 1988), pp. 524-534 Oxford University Press
Schackelford, M. (Jul 4, 2009). The Importance of Sports in America. Retrieve for this paper Mar 20, 2014 from, http://bleacherreport.com/articles/211946-the-importance-of-sports-in-america
In closing, these athletes are making too much money in a society that traditionally bases salaries on the value of ones work. These athletes do not know what real work is or how hard it is to make a dollar. Although their job is difficult, they do not play a role in our economy like their salaries indicate. Therefore, they should receive less money.
Many players have risen to stardom by becoming a professional athlete. Athletes have come from many different backgrounds; some from wealthy and some from poverty raised backgrounds. Salaries are continuing to rise, and money doesn’t seem to be an issue. Athletes are getting what they want from the owners by negotiating through their agents. Athletes’ salaries aren’t from their owners, but they come from other sources (“Athletes’ Salary”). Athletes get paid an extremely high salary for the work they do, and should consider the value of their work. They do not deserve the extreme amount they get paid and something should by done about it.
Sport has always entertained and influenced our lives. It creates dreams for children and goals for adults. However, many fans are oblivious to the millions they pocket each year. It is without doubt that our sports stars are grossly overpaid. Their annual earnings exceed those we make in a lifetime, even when compared to highly qualified professionals.
When addressing the value of entertainment, there is without a doubt, that we as a society value entertainment highly. But there is no reason that these athletes, who are here to merely entertain us, get paid higher wages than those that save our lives and teach us such as medical doctors and teachers. I find it ridiculous that players make millions of dollars a year, and yet demand more. The entertainment that these athletes provide is solely entertainment; it is not essential to the function or productivity of society. If I were to become a professional football player I would not complain about my salary for many reasons. I am playing the sport that I love and getting paid for it. The minimum wage for football is well over $100,000 a year, as is for many professional sports. These reasons by their lonesome are enough to warrant that the salary professional athletes are paid is suffice.