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High salaries for athletes
High salaries for athletes
High salaries for athletes
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Why is baseball the highest paid sport? Baseball, the sport with no clock, is filled with spare time and not simply the time wasting periods between innings, pitching changes and even pitches, but also before and after games. The season is 162 games not including the 30 plus spring training games and the postseason. But it’s not unusual for coaches to show up seven hours before night games and players to arrive five hours before the first pitch. And that’s not a lot for being in a big sport. One reason why i don’t get why it’s the highest paid sport because every day they Watch videos, spend time in the training room, hit in the indoor batting cages, take early drills, lift weights, stretch, hold team meetings, take on-field
A person that would like to play professional ball will choose baseball because there is a professional big league, such as the St. Louis Cardinals, but in softball that opportunity is not available. Baseball is played on more levels than softball. It is played on the professional, international, Olympic, college, high school, and little league levels. If a player is fortunate enough to make it to the professional level, he can make millions of dollars.
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...
According to the ESPN.com the average major league baseball team is worth 744 million dollars. The average team went up 23 percent from the 2012 season. The MLB media generates more than 600 million dollars in revenue. The national television revenue for baseball is around 12.4 billion dollars including, Fox, and ESPN. The average major league baseball player makes 3.31 million dollars a year, which is the second highest paid players of the four major sports leagues, according to yahoo.com.
Twenty-five million dollars made per year. Over one hundred fifty-four thousand dollars made per game. Over forty-seven thousand dollars earned per at bat. Sounds a little ridiculous, does it not? That is what current Texas Ranger shortstop Alex Rodriguez earns to play the game of baseball (azcentral.com). Baseball is a game that children have been playing in schoolyards and fields for the past one hundred years. It may not be a game anymore. On the Major League level it has become a business. This is where the problem starts.
Throughout the year a baseball player gives numerous amount of hours to baseball. Weekdays through weekends, a baseball player is constantly playing. During the year a player has a regular season in which games go on and an off season in which training happens. During the regular season, a professional baseball player plays three games every four days. On the extra day they have a practice. With this being said, there is no free time left within the regular playing season. During the off season a professional baseball player has more time than the regular season but still not as much as someone who does not play baseball. Every morning of an off season a player has to go work out to maintain strength. Many of the workouts can take up to three hours. This means a baseball player has three hours less throughout the day. A non baseball player has enough free time to do fun stuff like go out to the movies. A baseball player does not even have enough time to go home, relax, and watch tv. These sacrifices would be very difficult for some people to wrap their head around. They require constant, major dedication to the sport in which all professional players
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Major League Baseball, much like the majority of other American institutions, was racially segregated. A color barrier was implemented during baseball’s infancy in order to separate people of different race to cater to the white American players. The color barrier was an unofficial “rule” that hindered those with dark skin from playing baseball for Major League teams. The color barrier was enforced by preventing any teams with a colored player from competing at the professional level. Many team owners, umpires, and players justified their opposition to allowing blacks to play by declaring that only whites could uphold the "gentlemanly character" of professional baseball. Others argued that excluding blacks would prevent future racial resentment between the ethnicities, as players of different races would be competing for the same job opportunities.
Everybody values and views sports in different ways. Most athletes believe that the sport they excel in is the easiest and the best to play. Most baseball players believe that baseball is not the easiest sport to play, even if they excel in baseball. Baseball has a 282 page rule book, but other sports like football only have 82 pages of rules to follow. Baseball is unique because it is the only sport where the defense controls the ball, and where doing good on offense thirty percent of the time is considered good.
Now, I play baseball whenever in my spare time, which helps me reach my overall goal of playing the sport. It used to be for fun, but now I am trying to go farther than just having fun in the sport. I have had to do many things to get where I am, but I do not want to be finished yet, I want to keep going throughout my life and keep succeeding. “Baseball is a good thing”. Always was, always will be.”
There aren't as many spots needed in baseball which makes it a little more easier and isn't time consuming such as wrestling is. Baseball is more like holding a pitch right and with the correct fluent arm motion. When wrestling is more like shooting a sweeping single and swiping the other leg out placing them on their back or stomach. Batting takes time to learn and lot of it. Its confusing if they drop their elbow on their swing and attack the ball with their hands it will take many reps to fix it. Baseball is where players get a rude awakening. No matter how amazing athletes are or think they are they always have bad technique somewhere. More than likely players will grow up playing that way. Although once they get a little higher it hits them, and it hits them hard. All those bad reps come and hit people by surprise when they got to restart from the beginning.
Many people don't understand the point in playing baseball. Why would someone swing a stick, hit a ball, and try to get back to where they started before the ball returns? What pleasure is there in that? Why not participate in a sport like wrestling or track where there is an obvious level of individual improvement and therefore pleasure. Well, I play baseball because of the love I have for the sport, and because of the feeling that overwhelms me every time I walk onto a baseball field. When I walk onto a field I am given the desire to better myself not only as an athlete, but also as a person. The thoughts and feelings I get drive me to work hard towards my goals and to be a better person. The most relevant example of these feelings is when I stepped on the field at Runyon Complex in Pueblo, Colorado during our high school state playoffs in 2003. This baseball field will always be an important place to me.
"Lady, I'm not an athlete. I'm a professional baseball player" (John Kruk). Saying that baseball takes no athleticism is like saying Michael Jordan was bad at basketball, it is false. For example, have you ever seen Addison Russell, the Chicago Cubs shortstop, lay out for a ground ball and capture it, then bounce up from the ground and make a ridiculous throw to first? Making a play like that takes athleticism from another world, Addison needed to possess the hand eye coordination to snag the ball while parallel to the turf and he had to get up and make an acrobatic throw to first. Incredible. Not only does it take this kind of athleticism to make top ten plays, but even on the routine ground ball. Even though people might say baseball is
These are just some of the reasons why athletes are paid so much 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.
Some schools force students to participate in organized school sports. However, I believe that schools should not make this a requirement. Some students may have medical conditions, family situations that don't allow them to participate in organized school sports, or they simply may not have the time.
Professional athletes play in front of an audience and get paid for it. Fans like seeing these athletes perform their best so much that they are willing to pay to watch. Professional athletes are performers or entertainers. They must perform well in each game or risk losing. If they don 't play well, they won 't last long. The work of professional athletes is hardworking and at times demanding. This is both physical and mental stress. They must be in the best possible shape. Athletes usually work out all year, both during the season and in the off season in order to be able to start for their team. They must be able to perform their jobs at the highest level at all times. Professional athletes also face the constant threat of injuries that could potentially end their careers. For these and other reasons, this kind of job can be quite stressful. During the season, athletes often practice more than 50 hours a week. They may have other duties related to the team as well for instance, going to meetings or watching films about the opposition. Athletes have to move to the place where their team is located. If the manager decides to trade them, they have to most likely to move again. Being a professional athletes they often have curfews and other restrictions on the things they do. They are not allowed to just leave the job at the office like workers in other jobs can. That’s why the athletes receive what they get, because of what they do when they need to
A young boy goes up to his mother and says, "Mommy! I want to be a baseball player!" If this was said in 1930, the boy's mother probably would have told the boy, "That's not future for you! You need to get a real job and make good money." If this was said in 1999, the boy's mother probably would have said, "Let's go to the store and buy you a baseball glove so you can start to practice." It is visible to every sports fan that in the past few decades, sports has undergone a whole new renovation. It isn't just an activity that is played for fun. It is a business in which owner and players attempt to coincide. It is a business where TV controls fan interest. It is also a business that affects many people's lives, both monetary and living aspects. There are many aspects that are involved with the economics of sport. Each one having unique qualities that adds to the greatest source of entertainment.