In a world, where professional athletes are making exponentially more than those risking their lives in the military, than those doing back-breaking labor that will allow this country to continue to function, there is an outrage surrounding their colossal salaries. According to Forbes, the highest paid athlete in the world in 2016 was Christiano Ronaldo where he racked in an astounding 88 million dollars (Desantis). But should athletes really be treated to the luxury of millions of dollars per year? Are they really worthy of these substantial sums of money? And frankly, the answer is yes. The sporting industry is a business, and as with any business, money is the motivation. And within the business, you have laborers, and those laborers are …show more content…
Whether it be knee replacement surgery, back or neck surgery, or the infamous CTE on the brain, being an athlete can be expensive. Now, normal Americans can still require some of the surgeries that these athletes require, they are certainly not paying as much as the athletes most of the time. First, athletes normally go to the top specialist in their respective field because they need to get their body back in the best form possible in order to still perform their job. Whereas that can cost an extra chunk of money in itself, it’s still not the reason that athletes are paying much more for procedures. According to an article from Bleacher Report, Two Sides to Every Coin: Are Professional Athletes Overpaid?, most medical insurances won’t cover a professional athlete due to the kind of injuries they could be potentially dealing with. So this changes the prices drastically between the average American laborer and the athletes. Also, these injuries are going to be affecting an athlete for the rest of their lives, such as the ever-so-common knee problems that the athletes incur. Knee pains will be nearly a daily occurrence for an athlete and that’s one of the prices that they are willing to pay when they commit to playing their sport as a career. But with a few years of generous earnings, the knee pains could be considered just a subsidiary issue that can be ignored, or maybe even fixed. Even if that is true, there’s still the most serious injury, and that injury is CTE, or chronic traumatic
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
There has always been a lot of debate on whether or not college athletes should get paid. With as much money as college sports makes from these student athletes, should these student athletes be getting paid? There are many different stances on why I feel like these student athletes should be getting paid. I will talk about some of the reasons on why they should get paid. Being a student athlete is a very stressful thing in life at that age as they are attending school full time and working extremely hard at being the best athlete they can on the field.
In recent years, a major controversy in the NCAA has been whether or not student athletes in college should be paid for playing sports. There are different viewpoints from different people stating if they should or not. Many people believe that they are already being rewarded enough with their education being paid, but even with the school’s help with their tuition and school fees, many have trouble paying personal expenses. Even though some people believe they shouldn’t be compensated for their hard work and dedication, it is the right thing to do, due to their lack of time occupied by sports and schoolwork. Many famous athletes in college such as Johnny Manziel and Tim Tebow bring in millions of dollars into their universities due to publicity and even though they are breaking their backs they don’t receive a single dime for their hard work. The college coaches also get a really high salary, just for coaching the players. They also receive many contracts that include shoe contracts, TV and radio contracts, and many perks along the way. When the coaches get their teams to the playoffs or win major games, they might receive big bonuses. It doesn’t make sense that the athletes are the ones that are doing all the work to get the far yet they don’t see any form of compensation. Many executives from the NCAA and the universities also get millions of dollars from big sporting events, and they do nothing to earn it. The athletes are the ones taking stuff out of their time and working hard to not get paid.
Professional athletes are highly overpaid. Compensation should be based on job importance, not entertainment. If vital, life-saving professions are not rewarded for the stress of their jobs, there may come a day when those jobs are much harder to fill. Pay the individuals who make a difference in the
Should professional athletes earn millions of dollars for playing a game? Athletes should not be making millions and millions of dollars while more important jobs earn significantly less. There are doctors who save lives daily and they do not even make a tenth of what some athletes make. It is crazy to believe that someone is really worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and all they have to do is play a sport; a sport that millions of people would play for free if given the chance.
Every day people around the world complain about professional athletes salaries. Even though the top athletes make millions of dollars every year, the majority of athletes do not make any more than the average working class citizen. There are also many risks along with the job, and job security is very unstable. Expenses and taxes also limit the amount of money an athlete makes. Tax rates are extremely high for the men and women who participate in professional sports. The salaries of athletes such as Rafael Nadal and Drew Brees may seem to be a bit to high, but with all the factors that take money away from them they are not so high.
College athletes are not paid, yet they generate a great deal of money for the school, which is unfair. College athletes have to spend less time on their school work. Schools take advantage of them to make money. Colleges don’t care what the athlete does outside of sports. Many of them earn meaningless degrees because most of their time is spent on sports instead of school. The time spent on sports is more than the time spent on their school work. Playing sports in college is like a full time job. They spend a huge amount of their time training: lifting weights and watching their diets. It is unfair that college athletes are not getting paid because they spend most of their time on sports, they risk injury, and they have high dropout rates due to frustration.
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.
The NCAA does not pay college football athletes salary already and they should keep it that way. One reason college athletes play is to be recognized by NFL scouts because it is their dream to play professionally. They have risks playing football like injury and many other things, so some people say that the players should be paid salary so they have money to help with living, injury, etc. Some people will argue that they have the opportunity to make to the NFL and they also receive other things from the NCAA, so they should not be paid a salary. Overall the college athletes should not be paid salary to play college football because they receive financial living assistance, they receive free/or assisted pay for education to represent their
In closing, these athletes are making too much money in a society that traditionally bases salaries on the value of ones work. These athletes do not know what real work is or how hard it is to make a dollar. Although their job is difficult, they do not play a role in our economy like their salaries indicate. Therefore, they should receive less money.
To Pay or Not to Pay? The term student-athlete was first crafted by Walter Byers in 1951, the first President of the NCAA. Student-athlete refers to a student enrolled full-time at an accredited four-year academic institution who also participates full time in collegiate athletics. The NCAA has stated time and time again that these students are not employees of the university they attend or of the NCAA and refuse to compensate them for their talent.
Student athletes of colleges across America practice every day to be able to perform for large crowds year round. These athletes train in the weight and study in the film rooms for hours to perfect their craft in hopes to play well enough to make it to the professional leagues. These athletes, however, are not compensated for their efforts, and this has raised a big question about whether or not these students should receive some monetary stipended for their efforts. This subject divides many people because the answer is not black and white because there are many factors to be considered. A lot of people view these athletes as amateurs and being an amateur comes with them not being paid.
In addition, some say that the system of compensating student-athletes would be too hard to handle and monitor. I agree that it would be difficult because it is something new and would break the familiar mold, but that didn’t stop people in history before from doing what is necessary and what should be done before. Critics worry that it will ruin the game if we pay the student-athletes, but we don’t see them causing an uproar when schools pay the student-athletes’ coaches millions, or when the NCAA charges hundreds of dollars for a ticket to see a single game, or when schools sell a jersey with an athlete’s number on it at the student bookstore. When the Olympics allowed professionals to participate, it forever changed the Games in a positive
Sarah Turney AP-Lang-4 Mrs. O’Neal October 28, 2014 Argument Essay More and more people are bringing to attention the issue of possibly paying college athletes for their work. In fact, paying these athletes seems to be becoming more of a reality every year. According to the athletes themselves, their hard work should be rewarded by receiving some sort of payment; however, the NCAA believes that since they are students first, athletes second, they should receive no compensation (Pattern 1a).
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.