Why are athletes paid so much more than average worker?

Source: sbnation.com

Do you want to make at least $490,000 a year? That is the average minimum salary of every major professional sports league. To many people, they can only imagine and hope to ever make that amount of money. It will take many Americans many years to make $490,000, and professional athletes can make that in just a year. These sources, CBS Sports, SBNBA, , Forbes are reliable, because Forbes is a well known, and respected company. While the other two are sports sites that have a lot of experience in the way sports league operate. The major reason for the salaries of sports players continuing to go up is the increase of TV revenue due to new TV deals, because the popularity of sports is increasing . Also athletes are the best at what they do, and have been working at it for years. Many people envy these athletes and are jealous of their lives. However they have to work for years at getting to the pros and have to put in work year round to get to that point, where they can make that amount of money for playing a sport. Their careers average to about 5.5 years and after that have to live normal like us, which is difficult because they may not have a degree, because they put work into making it to the pros, not their education.

Many people believe that athletes make far too much money. There are role players in the NBA, such as Timofey Mozgov who just got a 4 year $64 M contract, while last postseason for the Cavs he rarely even saw the court. ( CBS Sports) That is $16 million for someone who played 76 out of 1,008 total minutes the Cavs played last postseason, because he was seen as not good enough. Granted now he is going to an inferior team, where he will likely start, but still $16 million is crazy. Especially when it is compared to a normal American, who makes on average just over $50,000 per year. A large part of this is because sports is an entertainment business.

While most normal workers work to provide basic necessities we need, but do not value as much as something that we enjoy, such as entertainment. People are willing to pay a high amount for really just an experience, $100 and up for pretty much every sport except baseball. These athletes work in entertainment, they are a part of people’s lives. “For many, professional sports events are the transcendent experience in  contemporary western culture.  Sports is filled with myths-wonderful stories of heroic performances and courage under pressure.” (CBS Sports, 2014) Their performance has an impact on people’s entertainment, if a team is losing they are not enjoying watching that and are not entertained by the team, often times it will actually affect someone’s mood. That is why according to CBS Sports, “TV revenue increased from $970 M to $2.67 B,” because people are willing to pay a lot to be entertained. Extra revenue for the league, extra revenue for the players. So the salaries of these players increases significantly, because TV revenue increased significantly.

The difference between an average American worker, and athletes is how good they are at what they do. These athletes in pro sports are the best at what they do, so they have earned the right be payed the best. An average American worker is likely very good at what they do, but they are not the best in the world at what they do. It is common to see better workers paid better wages everywhere in America, so that is why those who make it to the pros are paid the better wages. Athletes in the minor leagues tend to be paid about the average American salary of around $50,000 per year. That is how normal American jobs work, those who are not as good do not get paid as much. However in most cases the best does not make over $10 million usually. One thing implemented in most sports is a salary cap and floor, designed to prevent teams from being too good and signing all the best players, and from being too bad to just tank for the top picks in the draft. With an increase in TV revenue, the salary cap and floor goes up, so the players get the same percentage of league revenue through the salaries as before TV revenue spike. “Add a provision negotiated by Hunter requiring teams to spend at least 90 percent of the cap -- creating a payroll floor of $85 million -- and you have an unprecedented spending spree.” (SB Nation, 2016) This forces teams to pay more to their players, so average players are paid like stars. If a company has a large increase in revenue, often times then the salary of the workers will go up, which is what happened here, the league revenue went up so the players salary went up. So workers in sports work for companies (leagues) that tend to produce a lot more revenue than normal businesses, so their salary is much higher than the average American worker.

Future Research Question: Are athletes overpaid?