Professional Athletes Deserve Every Cent

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Many major cities generate hundreds of millions of dollars per year in revenue from ticket and merchandise sales from the marketability and popularity of their professional athletes. These athletes play for teams hundreds, even thousands of miles away from their homes and families in hopes of winning a championship. They spend weeks on end away from parents, wives, and children. These athletes endure injuries far beyond what the average person would. The most healthy, fit, and talented athletes are considered lucky if the can play past 35 years of age. Professional athletes take such physical abuse, many have to retire because one more blow could mean death. You can't put a price on life.

For some athletes money is not an issue. Many, including Griffey and Jay Buhner, defer portions of their salaries to make room for other players the team needs to win. Others, just willingly get paid less than market value for the same reason. As generous as these players are, some still argue professional athletes are selfish and greedy, when that is not the case at all. Multi-million dollar athletes deserve every cent they get paid.

With one year remaining on his contract, Seattle's star wide receiver, Joey Galloway, held out of camp for 102 days in 1999 before reporting. This has cost him $5,000 per day as well as paychecks of 93,000 per game; he has missed 8 games. (Allen) Galloway has been looking to sign a new contract with the Seahawks to make him the highest paid receiver in the NFL, and rightfully so. Galloway knows he is good. He knows he is one of the best, and so does his agent Eric Metz. In the best interest of Galloway, Metz was holding out for a five-year contract worth $25 million including a $10 million signin...

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