Are athletes overpaid?

  Source: www.theodysseyonline.com

Have you ever turned on your phone and just laughed about a ridiculous contract that was just signed? Often times looking at the amounts that some of these contracts are worth seems ridiculous. However we have to ask the question, is it really? While some of the contracts are unfair and worth way too much, for the most part athletes are paid what they deserve. Sports are popular nationwide, Super Bowl Sunday almost seems like a holiday now. Sports as a whole are so popular and teams are so beloved by their fans that they have become a huge part of our country’s culture. We are willing to pay large sums to watch the games, whether on TV or in person, so the amount of money that industry makes is higher than most other industries in our community. People are willing to pay to be entertained, which is what sports do. The sources are, Daily Herald, Odyssey,  and DQYDJ. All three of these sources are knowledgeable, because they are familiar with the wages of normal people and stars such as athletes.

Professional athletes are at the top of their profession, that is why they are called professionals. “The athletes who make serious money are virtuosos, many of whom combine hard work with undeniable talent to make a career out of what they love. Talent is rare.” (Odyssey) Athletes work their entire lives to get to the top of their professions by making it to the professional leagues. Many people simply do not have the abilities necessary to be a pro, and will never get them through hard work. The reason is talent as the article said talent is rare. “There are cuts at every stage – it’s a pyramid.  While there may be millions of young athletes, there are far less high school athletes.  Even more cuts happen for College and the Professional level, and every level of cuts costs the athlete more and more of sunk time and money which it took to get to that level.” (DQYDJ) A very small percentage of athletes will make it all the way through high school and college sports to the professional leagues. The amount of people who get to this level is incredibly small, because there is a limited amount of spots in the pros.   In the NFL there is less than 2000 roster spots, the NBA there is 350-400, the MLB has 750 roster spots, and finally the NHL has 700 roster spots. So considering there millions of youth athletes in each sport, that is a very small percentage getting all the way to the pros. In short, pros deserve to be paid like they are, because they have dedicated their whole lives to getting to this point and have had to overcome lots of adversity to get to that point.

Along with the fact that it is incredibly difficult for athletes to get to the pros it is just as difficult for them to stay there. There is all sorts of obstacles that will be put in their path. Just one injury can totally change the career of an athlete. They may never be able to rediscover their game again after the injury, case in point RG3. Also for athletes there is always competition with teammates, who are trying to take their spots away from them. Nothing in professional sports is guaranteed, because no matter how big your contract or how long you have been around, teams always want to put the best team possible on the field. So there really is no such thing as job security in professional sports. “From what I can find, NHL players average 5.66 seasons, NFL players 6.86, NBA players 4.81, and MLB players (again, skewed by the minor league system) 5.6.”(DQYDJ)To play at a high level for that long is hard, because injuries can derail a career or players can just lose their ability. Now it seems being paid at even the minimum salary in those leagues for that amount of years would put them in a different class. However people forget that they have been training for sports their whole lives so it is likely that they do not have a college degree. It is very difficult for people without a college degree to get a well paying job. So right out of the league, those athletes are lost and do not know what to do or how to get a job. They have to go back to college, but many of them do not and struggle for years due to it.

There is a counter argument that these athletes make way too much, when you see the comparisons to wages of other types of workers. People argue that people who do much more important jobs and get paid much less, and they are right that is true. “Our president earns a yearly salary of $400,000, and he runs our country, while the athletes just provide amusement. Don't get me wrong, but paying an athlete $13.5 million for a single year is just overpriced. There are doctors who save lives every day and do not make anything close to that amount.” (Daily Herald) The president and doctors are responsible for much more important things than the outcome of a sports game. The safety and well being of the country and the lives of people is much more important than sports. However people think that there are hundreds of thousands that can be president or have the skills to do it. The supply of talented athletes is really low, so the demand for them is a lot higher than the one for a president, which there is a high supply of. Also sports is entertainment that interests people more than politics do.  Sports is a business, an entertainment business,  “This one could certainly work both ways, but overall, professional athletes set a great example... Many athletes have had to overcome serious adversity to succeed, and kids going through similar struggles can relate. (Odyssey) Entertainment is valuable to people, so they hold athletes in high esteem and watch every game, because they love it Sports are not sports without the fans, and the fans likely appreciate their favorite athlete more than the president, even though his job has a bigger impact on our lives. People look up to athletes and athletes are on a platform, where they can spread a message and provoke change. Their decisions affect the way many people act. The Kaepernick situation is an example, it is part of what athletes feel a responsibility to do to provoke change and stand up for a cause to show people that they can stand up for their cause. This has become a nationwide story due to the fact he does this on national TV, and the media spreads it and talks about it daily. He is getting people to talk about it, which is what he should do, get people to talk about change that is why he is paid so much. Athletes deserve extra money, because they have a spotlight on them that no one else does. They are on a platform, different from everyone else, and their decisions have an impact on our country and world. Athletes are not overpaid, because of the spotlight on them all the time.

Future Research Question: Why do certain sports make so much more money than others?