Posted on 05/14/2019 12:19:01 PM PDT by Jagermonster
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Instead of spending their offseasons training or vacationing, professional baseball, football, and basketball players once tended to take their place in the traditional workforce. During the 1950s, Brooklyn Dodgers outfielder Carl Furillo ran a Queens deli in the winter, and Hall of Fame New York Giants quarterback Y.A. Tittle sold insurance in the summer. In the 1960s, Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown worked as a sales rep for Pepsi when he wasn’t breaking tackles. A few weeks after Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer shut out the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 2 of the 1966 World Series, he reported to his winter job selling suits at a men’s clothing store for $150 a week. He needed the paycheck, he told reporters, “to pay for groceries, hot water, and electricity.”
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Since then the pool of money that players and owners divide has grown exponentially, and the biggest reason for that increase can be expressed with two letters: TV. In 1961, CBS, the sole network that televised NFL games, paid the league $4.65 million for broadcast rights. Today, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, and ESPN all pay for the rights to broadcast part of the NFL’s schedule, and the league pulls in $3 billion in TV revenue alone each year.
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The bottom line, then, is that the national attraction to sports has created a multibillion-dollar industry and quite simply, all of that money has to go somewhere.
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“We get a little bit of sticker shock because we see $430 million to play baseball and we think, ‘What the heck is that?’” Mr. Klein says. “But an individual’s salary is not a reflection or function of their social worth, or their value to humanity. It’s more a function of the relative scarcity of the service they provide.”
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
Short answer, Yup.
My 2 cents, sports peaked in the 60s,70s,and 80s.
Sports medicine, training and dieting has made players better so much they’ve outgrown NHL size rinks which should now be at least 30% large.
People are paying to go I guess or the money wouldn’t be there.
Too much money for throwing a ball around? Nah. It’s one of the most important jobs ever. The nation couldn’t function without adult ball-throwers. Plus, some guys catch the balls, too. Or put them in holes. All highly valuable services to the nation.
As it has always been.
No one in the private sector gets paid more than their employer thinks they are worth. The public sector, well, that's another story.
They wouldn’t have two nickles to rub together without the masses of sheeple who watch them perform.
See post #5
The day everybody can throw a 95mph fastball over the plate or make contact at the plate consistently with that 95mph fastball, is the day that MLB baseball players will be paid less.
In a free economy, nobody makes too much or too little money.
IMO.
One caveat to my post: the only time the employee maybe is paid more than the employer thinks they are worth is if there is a minimum wage that needs to be paid.
Or the day enough people do not value those skills.
Yes. Next question.
I’m a huge champion of free markets, voluntary contracts between parties, and the government protecting those markets and property trades. So, yes, of course they are getting paid exactly what they are worth.
I just see it as a worthless endeavor and don’t spend a dime on it. Others like buying multi-hundred dollar tickets or spending a hundred thousand for a “seat license.” To each his own.
Your sarcasm makes a good point. What these athletes(and owners) are paid is not logical when comparing what they contribute to society. It’s what the market will bear. The highest paid person by job responsibilities and influence on the country and the world should be the President, using only logic.
However, human beings aren’t logical. So attempts through government control of resources and manufacturing(communism) fails. We might not like the some of the outcomes from capitalism but it is 1000% better than the outcomes from other economies.
Do lottery winners get too much money?Truth be told, some lottery jackpots get up into the territory of Bryce Harper’s salary.
Exactly.
Anyone thinks they make too much? Great. So the State should take away their income?
How Hillaryesque.
“We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”
I understand. I haven't gone to a professional sporting event in quite some time.
But as long as enough people want to spend their time on sports, the money will be there to pay the athletes. Same thing applies to the entertainment industry.
No.
Anyone who says otherwise is not a conservative.
Nope. They have a right to make whatever they can get the team owner to pay.
The fans can set the price by how much they support the team.
Harper's a piker. Now Mike Trout...that's real money.
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