Posted on 05/14/2019 12:19:01 PM PDT by Jagermonster
If you want to make money make somebody else money. Sports are massive industries, hauling in billions of dollars on the labor of a small number of people with short careers. So they get paid.
Very well put. Agree 100%. As I said in a follow-up post, there’s nothing like the free market to set prices and allocate scarce resources. It is brutally efficient.
As a Browns fan, you HAVE been overpaying your athletes. ☺ /sarc
As long as the teams can afford it and the fans support the teams I don’t have a problem with it. Personally, I’m happy to spend what it takes a couple of times a season to see Max Scherzer pitch...no matter what he makes.
“It’s what the market will bear.”
Yes, and ultimately what their employers think is worth paying. Personally, I think as you do that their overall value to society is out of line with what they’re paid, but I’m not the one paying them. I feel the same about many CEOs, who get paid a ton even if the company they’re managing fails. I feel even more strongly about what Hollywood actors/actresses get paid, but again, I’m not paying them.
The bottom line is that if some sports continue to draw less people, and less people watch on TV/streaming, they will make less money, and will thus spend less on athlete salaries.
When we lived in Seattle a friend of ours was close to one of the big name players. One day my wife and I were given his seats. They were three rows up at half court.
Before the game, a Seattle police officer was standing on the court in front of us, facing the crowd with his hands behind his back as a sort of security barrier. I leaned to my wife and said, “if you were to fill that court with row after row of police officers from edge to edge they would not earn as much per year as the player from whom we got the seats.
We left.
We’re not big basketball fans. We prefer to play sports rather than watch. However, we will go to a Louisville Bats game every now and then. Seats right behind the third base dugout are $11 each and parking is $6 right outside the entrance.
I don’t pay the salary of professional players. But those that like to watch DO pay their salary (ticket prices and parking prices) and seem happy to do it. It’s not worth it to us.
My wife and I vote with our wallets constantly. Saves us a lot of money and we end up doing the things we really want to do.
I don’t value those sports skills.
ML/NJ
Non-sports person here and proud of it.
Times have changed.
My wife and I know an NBA Hall of Famer. Trouble is, he was famous in the late 70’s - early 80’s.
His wife still had to work. Just to make ends meet.
It’s called capitalism. No one put a gun to the owners head. If they didn’t believe paying $30 million per year to s player would not bring them a return surpassing that amount they would not have done so.
A professional athletes career can end in a moment and many have. Very few contracts are fully guaranteed.
Professional athletes may not be worth every dime they get but they should get every dime they can an without apology.
Those who are so adamantly opposed to these high salaries should answer this question. If you were a professional athletes and of average talent and your agent calls and said he has negotiated a new contract for 25 million per year for 10 yrs (5 times your current salary) would you turn it down?
We all know 95% of the people asked would say no and the other 5% are lying.
A carpenter called Rush once and asked why athletes make so much more than him.
Rush said when they build a stadium around a house you’re building and 100,000 people come to see you build, you’ll deserve the athlete’s pay.
Except for the taxpayer subsidized stadiums & the corporate tax deductions for companies to buy tickets, which is why real fans can't get good seats anymore.
Still, I'm sorry that players were ripped off historically. In the '60s the MLB minimum was $5000. And almost everyone started with that. I'm sure there were a lot of point shaving and thrown games that got swept under the rug. We don't have to worry about that now ... in the pros.
“”We all know 95% of the people asked would say no and the other 5% are lying.””
My company could offer me $1 million dollars a year to move back to Baltimore and show up at work 5 days a week. (I work from home in FL). I would say no in heat beat. Not 2, 5, 10, or 100 million a year would get me to move back to that sh*t hole.
I’d rather be homeless.
Exactly. I really am not interested in grown men playing childrens games. I don't understand why other people are.
One last point. Whenever some say, “That person makes too much money,” it is usually a sign of envy, or worse yet, disdain for the person in question. This envy and disdain is the backbone of the Democrat/socialist/communist philosophy.
I had a co-worker whose son was signed, right out of high school, to the San Diego Padres. Lordy, how the money rolled in.
Inflation.
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