Essay On Why Athletes Should Be Paid

1489 Words3 Pages

Regulating an athlete’s salary would unjustly penalize the athletes who help sports leagues raise the massive amounts of revenue they earn today. Only a small percentage of the human population is physically and mentally capable of playing in a professional sports league, unlike most professions that can hire easily replace a disgruntled employee. Athletes put their bodies on the line week in week out, and runs the risk of succumbing to serious injuries. Although many people hold resentments towards the high salaries most professional athletes earn, the sports leagues earn billions of dollars due to the consumer demand of professional sports. It would be unjust to take money away from the athletes, only to hand that money right back to the …show more content…

In most other professions, employers have more leverage over salaries since an they can easily replace an employee. For instance, sports, agents can negotiate lucrative multimillion dollar contracts, because sports teams could risk losing a player to an opposing team or league if they fail to meet a player’s wage demands. An athlete's price tag will continue to stay high since sports franchises must compete with one another over the chance to sign players from a limited pool of professional athletes. Whether an athlete is the face of a franchise or a bench warmer, they all must possess immense talent and athletic prowess to even make it on a professional team. Out of all the prospective athletes that attempt to become professional athletes only a small fraction make the cut. The NCAA reported that in 2015, only 46 out of 4,155 eligible college Basketball players got selected in the NBA draft, a mere 1.1% of the eligible players (NCAA). Any time that supply is low when demands are high, prices begin to skyrocket. Since there are few individuals capable of playing at the professional level it would be unjust to arbitrarily slash their salaries. Another fact to consider is the injury risks that athletes expose themselves to every time they

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