Professional Athlete Salaries

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Professional Athlete Salaries

In today’s society many will argue whether or not professional athletes are overpaid. In the present time athletes are being paid phenomenally large amounts of money for their entertainment. It is my claim that all professional athletes are overpaid because they do not offer society an essential function that improves or enhances our world in comparison to other professionals such as medical doctors, lawyers, and teachers. Society does not value entertainment enough to warrant such high salaries such as those of many professional athletes. There is no reason that these athletes should demand these tremendous amounts of money. This is why you have to put into question their reasoning for demanding such high salaries.

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.

Athletes are paid large amounts of money. It can also be argued whether ...

... middle of paper ...

...to settle for less, and in compensation a possible retirement plan or some form of benefits should be assembled. The only athletes that I truly disagree with are the ones that can’t differentiate between “needs” and “wants”. Luxuries are wants, and necessities are needs; if they could settle for less (yet still reasonable) money they would avoid lockouts and holdouts, and continue to entertain our society, which is their whole purpose.

Bibliography:

WORKS CITED

Boody, Kevin (High School football player).Personal interview. 18 Nov. 1999.

Farell, William E. “Holdout Continues”.New York Times 15 Aug.1998:E13

Gaetano, Chris (College football player).Personal interview 18 Nov. 1999.

Martinez, Michael. “Malone Wears Union Label.” Sports Illustrated 17 Aug, 1998:183-184

World Almanac and Book of Facts 1999. New Jersey: A Primedis Company, 1999.

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