A salary cap in all four major professional sports is unfathomably crucial. A salary cap is a set maximum or minimum amount of money that a team is allowed to spend on its players (Cushman 3). The four major professional sports are the National Football League or NFL, Major League Baseball or MLB, the National Basketball Association or NBA, and the National Hockey League or NHL (Cushman 1).
Professional sports are often perceived as one of the last true bastions of capitalism, where player salaries are constrained only by what the market will bear. Since the 1990’s, however, [professional] sports leagues have grown increasingly concerned over the increase in player salaries, not only in terms of the absolute cost required to field a competitive
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“Permitting big-market teams that have more access to resources to purchase the best talent available at any cost, it is believed, tilts the playing field unfairly against teams in markets that, due to lower merchandising, advertising, and local revenues, are unable to spend the money required to compete…” (Cushman 1). Opponents to a salary cap argue that a salary cap has little to no effect on how much teams win, but Ames Cushman refutes that idea. Ames C. Cushman, a research and argument coach for legal communities with a Juris Doctor and Bachelor of Arts degrees from the University of Missouri in Kansas City, stresses the importance of a salary cap in professional sports. When Cushman said, “In recent years, salary caps have become largely perceived as a necessary evil, with most disputes centering on the amount of the caps, the percentage of the team revenues devoted to player salaries, and the rules governing the treatment of bonuses and incentives,” he was trying to show that most sports’ experts agree that a salary cap is necessary to ensure league-wide parity (4). Parity is the idea that all games are competitive no matter what and the outcome of the games is not pre-determined because of the teams that are playing (2). Cushman is not the only expert who believes parity is the key to the permanency of professional …show more content…
Costas, a long time professional sportscaster and co-author of Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association, vows that the MLB is an unfair playing environment, but Costas believes he has the perfect solution. Costas believes that properly adjusting the television revenue of each team is the best solution to the MLB’s parity problem. Costas believes this is the most ideal solution because without a salary cap in place each of the thirty teams in the MLB is able to spend at its own discretion. That free spending has become very unbalanced because of the lopsided amount of revenue that different teams are able to accrue each season. Costas thinks that by eliminating the huge differences in the revenue brought in by each team that he is stabilizing the MLB’s parity crisis until a salary cap can be put into place. Costas also believes if the playing field isn’t leveled, fans will begin to lose interest in the MLB, causing the baseball empire to crumble (64). Costas believes the best solution to the MLB’s parity dilemma is to revise the current format of revenue-sharing of television revenue. Currently, the MLB has a revenue-sharing system which equally splits the gross income of national broadcasts among all thirty teams but allows each team to keep all revenue from
Do Major League Baseball teams with higher salaries win more frequently than other teams? Although many people believe that the larger payroll budgets win games, which point does vary, depending on the situation. "performances by individual players vary quite a bit from year to year, preventing owners from guaranteeing success on the field. Team spending is certainly a component in winning, but no team can buy a championship." (Bradbury). For some, it’s hard not to root for the lower paid teams. If the big money teams, like Goliath, are always supposed to win, it’s hard not cheer for David. This paper will discuss the effects of payroll budgets on the percentage of wins for the 30 Major League Baseball teams of 2007.
...uld be acceptable would be to issue a salary cap like every other major sport in America. The NFL and NBA were forced to have a salary cap and we haven't seen a dominant team like the Yankees since the Celtics in the 50's and 60's. Every year there is usually a different "dominant" team and the Super Bowl and NBA Championship is always up for grabs. Attendance is slowly declining in the MLB because people do not want to support their home teams when in reality, they will lose to the usual dominant high paid teams. This is not fair to any sports fan and the only acceptable solution to keep attendance high and ratings up is to issue a salary cap.
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.
Under the protection of Major League Baseball’s (“MLB”) longtime antitrust exemption, Minor League Baseball (“MiLB”) has continuously redefined and reshaped itself according to Baseball’s overall needs. But while MLB salaries have increased dramatically since the MLB reserve clause was broken in 1975, the salaries of minor league players have not followed suit.
By taking the labor market theory and MRP of players and analyzing how they interact with wage determination and competitive balance mechanisms we can make an economic analysis of the labor market inefficiencies. Giving us the ability to make some determinations on why labor market inefficiencies exist in professional sports and how/if there are any ways to correct for
A salary cap gives all the teams an equal chance to sign players. It also keeps teams with a lot of money not able to acquire every all-star they want , or any player who is a free agent. Some Major League Baseball teams like the Anahiem Angels and the Atlanta Braves are owned by very wealthy people and companies. The Anaheim Angels are owned by Disney.(Worisnop, 128) So with no surprise the Angels can produce a team which can be very competitive, and have several all-star players. Just recently they exercised this advantage by signing Mo Vaughn for ninety million dollars over seven years.(Antonen, 2) There were at least four other teams that wanted to sign this all-star, but the Angels easily had the money, and outbid everyone who wanted to sign him. If there was a salary cap in Major League Baseball then the Angels would have thought twice about giving that much money to one player. With the its roster for one year. So giving one player 12.8 million dollars for one year does not really make sense if the salary cap is fifty million dollars a year. That would leave only 37.2 million dollars for the twenty-four other players, which equals each player getting on average a little less than one and a half million dollars a year.
come up with a solution to keep baseball going in America while most of the professional
Therefore, I urge you, for the sake of leveling the playing field in baseball, making the game more exciting, cleaning the name of the game, giving the fans more appreciation, and to give additional funding to MLB, to take into great consideration the proposal that I have presented to you, and realize the long lasting effects it will have on the game of baseball for years to come.
If there’s one thing we dread in the summer more than the heat, it’s the afflicting sentiment that surrounds oneself when one is inhibited from experiencing the thrills of football for six long and gruesome months. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) football is a part of many Americans’ Saturdays, but to fewer does it mean their lives. Recently coming under debate, many sporting fans and college athletes believe that players should be paid more than just tuition, room, board, and books. Two articles on this issue that bring up valid points worth discussing are Paul Marx’ “Athlete’s New Day” and Warren Hartenstine’s “College Athletes Should Not Be Paid.” From these articles I have found on the basis of logical,
Many people can easily picture this scene in their minds: the roaring crowds, the smell of easy- to-eat foods, and the thousands of people all dressed in the same colors. That’s a description of game day at a major college. College sports bring in a lot of money, yet their players don’t receive any money. Many people view this as something that needs to be changed while others believe that only professionals should be compensated. In the essays “Let Stars Get Paid” and “College Athletes Should Not Be Paid”, both authors give their opinions on whether or not college athletes should be paid. College athletes should not be paid because they already receive many benefits from being athletes.
Baseball remains today one of America’s most popular sports, and furthermore, baseball is one of America’s most successful forms of entertainment. As a result, Baseball is an economic being of its own. However, the sustainability of any professional sport organization depends directly on its economic capabilities. For example, in Baseball, all revenue is a product of the fans reaction to ticket prices, advertisements, television contracts, etc. During the devastating Great Depression in 1929, the fans of baseball experienced fiscal suffering. The appeal of baseball declined as more and more people were trying to make enough money to live. There was a significant drop in attention, attendance, and enjoyment. Although baseball’s vitality might have seemed threatened by the overwhelming Great Depression, the baseball community modernized their sport by implementing new changes that resulted in the game’s survival.
College athletics is a billion dollar industry and has been for a long time. Due to the increasing ratings of college athletics, this figure will continue to rise. It’s simple: bigger, faster, stronger athletes will generate more money. College Universities generate so much revenue during the year that it is only fair to the players that they get a cut. College athletes should get paid based on the university’s revenue, apparel sales, and lack of spending money.
The controversy of athletes being overpaid dates back to 1922, when well-known baseball player George “Babe” Ruth received $50,000 within the first year of his career. Ruth’s extensive wealth was bolstered by dozens of endorsements (Saperecom). As it is shown in figure 1, in the Fortunate 50 Tiger Woods takes the number one spot for highest paid athlete. Tiger’s salary for 2011 is $2,294,116 and like Babe Ruth, his endorsements exceed his salary earning $60,000,000 making his total $62,294,116 (Freedman). It’s crazy to think that 89 years ago professional athletes scarcely made more than the average person today. This is of course not counting the inflation that has occurred since the years which Babe Ruth played baseball.
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
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.