How much does a person have to make to be able to afford the essentials in life, food, water and shelter? According to the Department of Labor, the minimum wage for Colorado is $7.78 an hour. With 40 hour weeks you can earn a whopping annual salary of $16,182. Most people will indeed argue there’s no way to live off that but that’s a completely different argument than mine. Should a professional athlete be paid millions of dollars a year, when there are people out there barely scraping change to afford their monthly bills.
Peyton Manning makes over 18 million dollars in a single year for going out in the public eye and playing a simple sport for the amusement of others. That’s more than most people can make in a lifetime. Should we really be paying Peyton Manning 18 million to play a 16 game season, when others are barely making $17,000 to support themselves? That is isn’t practical or fair at all considering a firefighter makes an average of $43,000 a year. Yes, that number is true. A man who goes out and risks his life on a daily basis to protect others makes a significantly less salary than a pro athlete that entertains the masses. We are just barely scratching the surface of this dilemma. Alex Rodriguez earned $33 million dollars last year in Major League Baseball. How could someone ever spend $33 million on himself? It’s crazy to think America puts most of its attention and money into entertainment, when people are homeless, starving, or living on welfare. But as long as LeBron James can spend $3,000 on a suit and tie he’ll probably wear once and play head to head against other athletes, are satisfied. There’s a lot of money being circulated between giant franchises in the sports world, but honestly how much do you really need to be paid to live a comfortable, sustainable life.
The league minimums of a players yearly salary (mostly the bench warmers and
When looking into the history of our culture, there are many subtopics that fall under the word, “history.” Topics such as arts and literature, food, and media fall into place. Among these topics reside sports. Since the beginning of time, sports have persisted as an activity intertwined with the daily life of people. Whether it is a pick-up game of football in the backyard, or catching an evening game at the local stadium, sports have become the national pastime. According to Marcus Jansen of the Sign Post, more specifically, baseball is America’s national pastime, competing with other sports (Jansen 1). Providing the entertainment that Americans pay top dollar for, live the role models, superstars, and celebrities that put on a jersey as their job. As said in an article by Lucas Reilly, Americans spend close to $25.4 billion dollars on professional sports (Reilly 4). The people that many children want to be when they grow up are not the firefighters or astronauts told about in bed time stories. These dream jobs or fantasies have become swinging a bat or tossing a football in front of millions of screaming fans. When asked why so many dream of having such job, the majority will respond with a salary related answer. In today’s day and age, the average athlete is paid more than our own president. The cold hard facts show that in professional sports, the circulation of money is endless. Certain teams in professional baseball and football are worth over millions of dollars. Consequently, the teams who are worth more are able to spend more. The issue that arises with this philosophy is virtually how much more? League managers, team owners and other sports officials have sought out a solution to the surfacing problem. Is it fair to let...
Players do not deserve the money they receive. There are people who do much more than the players do. Why do teachers not get paid millions of dollars to teach kids? Some of those kids end up going on to become professional athletes. Police officers and firemen risk their lives to keep people safe and most of them do not even make any more than 95 thousand dollars a year (Megerian). These athletes get fined more money than that and hand it over like someone just asked them for one dollar. Players have all of this money and do not even do anything worth earning it. Why do they get this money? It is because fans value athletes more than the important things in life like education and family.
Americans believe that athletes, celebrities, and CEOs are the highest paid jobs in America. This belief is true however the average income of these three jobs is nowhere near what the perception is. Athletes are the most confusing when it comes to pay since people do not factor in that an average professional is only 4.85 years, NFL is 3.5 years, MLB is 5.6 years, NBA is 4.8, and NHL is 5.5 years, (RSVLTS, 2013) United States Bureau of Labor Statistics stated that an average income for “athletes and sport competitors” was only $47,710 (BLS, 2017). People believe that athletes are only the stars you see on television, but this is not the case. Athletes are risking their health for that paycheck. They spend a majority of their lives in the gym or on
The college athletes of their respective sports today, have the opportunity of showcasing their talents in competition on local and national programming on a regular basis which has lately brought attention this controversy, paying college athletes. The issue was brought on by the athletes over time, then caught onto coaches, sports columnists, and fans. The athletes dedicate themselves to the sport to a caliber comparable to the professional tier. The idea of paying the athletes could be considered as they play major factor in reputation of their schools, as well as funds for their schools. However most colleges do not have profitable sports teams. Thus, paying athletes would prove to be a very difficult endeavor and this could destroy college athletics as we know them today.
Do athletes get overpaid? Is it fair that the average NFL player gets paid 1.9 million dollars a year while the average heart surgeon gets paid 533 thousand dollars annually? I think that professional athletes don’t get paid too much. There are multiple reasons that proves that their pay is not excessive. Their careers are short, they risk their body for our entertainment, and they motivate children.
Ms. Jennifer Fontaine does not support the idea that athletes are overpaid. Ms. Fontaine suggests that athletes who are superior in their skills and talents associated with their respective sport should be duly compensated. Ms. Fontaine also states that the money earned by these athletes is justified because professional athletes work harder than people in almost any other profession. Last, it is her premise that the money earned by these highly talented athletes help to cover the high costs of medical treatment for serious, if not life-long, injuries such as knee, back/spinal, and head injuries.
The same should be said about every job so why is it that players, especially in the NFL, NBA and ABC are paid crazy salaries. There needs to be regulations and caps guiding how much a player can make. This would help insure that all sports remain competitive and everyone has a chance to win. There is no shortage in athletes who want to go pro. Due to the lack of requirements, the work schedule, and the fact that their job is to entertain. There needs to be real change in the sports industry. Lowering athletes’ salaries would only hurt the current players’ lifestyles. The ones up and coming would still have an excellent future if they made even 500,000 dollars a year. Which is still seven times higher than the WNBA is willing to pay their athletes. The WNBA are just as serious of a competitor as other sports, whether it be ice skating, wrestling or football. Therefore it’s time to make sure that every athlete women or male should get paid a fair and justifiable
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.
Al Dunning, Sports E. "Paying Athletes would Bankrupt most Colleges." The Commercial Appeal: 0. Jan 09 1995. ProQuest.Web. 26 Nov. 2013 .
One game for Alex Rodriguez he can make about $281,000! That is more than an average family will get in about 6 years! Think about soldiers who get a bare minimum of only about $1,500 a month or $18,000 a year. The people who most definitely risk their lives to keep us safe are only getting the salary per year than A Rod will get in 5 minutes! The minimum salary for a MLB player is an astonishing $507,700! Again that is a bit too much! There are athletes that do deserve to get at least a 5 to 7 million dollar contract but not a 29 million dollar one! All of these baseball or basketball player’s salaries aren’t including bonuses these players get such as $5,000 because you hit a grand slam and a home run today! Some salaries of low-paid jobs don’t even equal what a baseball player’s daily bonus is, and that is a huge problem. Did you know that in September of this year the unemployment rate was 5%! That means that if 500 people were working in a factory, 25 workers would lose their jobs. If people started to pay that's less money we wouldn’t have to be laying off so many people per day! Athletes get a huge and unreasonable
The salary of professional athletes are always being debated on whether they make too much or it 's the right amount they should make. Some of the athletes do make millions and millions of dollars, but there is some that don 't. Anyways in order to make the millions first an athletes must make it to the professional level. For example in soccer only 1.4% of people actually make it to the professional level. So the rest of the people make it for other sports such as football, basketball, baseball, and others. To be considered a professional athlete you must be getting payed to play a sport. They will be playing for a league and even tournaments and get rewarded with more money if they win. Some may think an athlete
Is College Athlete receiving payment important for Student Athlete to get through college. Or is this whole topic irrelevant because College Athletes are already on a scholarship? This topic is important because it gives Student Athletes a chance to get extra money for their personal needs. Also this topic is very controversial to our society today and has been making a lot of commotion for College Athlete for years. One Side believes College Athletes should not receive payment for playing a sport because many people think that they’re already on a scholarship so they’re are being paid through that scholarship.
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.
Many players have risen to stardom by becoming a professional athlete. Athletes have come from many different backgrounds; some from wealthy and some from poverty raised backgrounds. Salaries are continuing to rise, and money doesn’t seem to be an issue. Athletes are getting what they want from the owners by negotiating through their agents. Athletes’ salaries aren’t from their owners, but they come from other sources (“Athletes’ Salary”). Athletes get paid an extremely high salary for the work they do, and should consider the value of their work. They do not deserve the extreme amount they get paid and something should by done about it.
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