QotD: Paying Pro Athletes
Do professional athletes make too much money, or do they deserve every penny? Why?
While I cannot address all professional athletes, it does make sense to me why a professional football player would be worth the potentially millions of dollars they can earn in one year, and it all comes from a logical mathematical point of view.
If you go by Super Bowl numbers, the NFL has potentially over 1 Billion fans. In 2006 the NFL was estimated to have gross earnings of $6 Billion, with $3.7 Billion of those dollars earned from the network affiliates at ESPN, CBS, FOX, NBC, and the NFL Network.
On the expense side, each of the 32 teams had a regular season roster of 53 players. Each team was also allowed a practice squad of 8 players. I also calculated (using the Seattle Seahawks as an example) that the average professional football team has a coaching staff of around 20 people, and management/employee staff of around 127 people which brings us to a total of 208 people per franchise. 208 people per franchise multiplied by the 32 franchises in the league brings us to an estimated employee pool of 6,656 people (not including the unknown number of people who work with and for the commissioner of the league and the players union).
If you divide the $6 Billion in earnings by the estimated employee pool of 6,656 you arrive at an average earning of $901,442 per person. Some might argue that the players are being paid too much when some of that money could be spread around to all of the other employees who makeup up the NFL brand, but I would argue that because the players have to perform under such incredible pressure and because their earnings are not guaranteed should they become injured or unable to perform at the same high level consistently and because their earnings are often dependent on wins more than losses, they deserve $901,442 or more per year for their contributions to making this world a brighter and more fun place to be in.
Put another way, imagine the Super Bowl where the number of viewers reaches easily over 1 Billion. You have 2 teams, 106 players, 40 coaches, and 254 employees, all brought together to entertain those 1 Billion people. How much is that entertainment worth to each individual who is experienced the peaks and valleys of the NFL football game? $1 dollar a piece? More? Less?
I think we've all met the guy who is willing to spend hundreds on his cable or satellite bill in order to see his favorite team each year. To that guy, the Super Bowl is clearly worth more than $100 of his annual earnings. If every person who was watching paid only $1 per person and the amount was divided evenly among all the participants, each of the 400 participants would roughly receive $2.5 million just from playing that one game, the Super Bowl. Is it their fault that so many people enjoy the sport? Put in that perspective is it really unfair to pay a top performing player say $10 million dollars for the entire regular season? I think not.
Would we object if a person sold a piece of their art to the public for a nickel and over 1 billion people bought a copy? Would their contribution to the human experience during that moment not be worth the $50 million dollars they just earned?
What about the worth of the stories about the players exploits that can be handed down from father to son, mother to daughter? Look back in hindsight at the importance of players such as Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan to their leagues. What is their worth, when now, years after their playing careers have ended, they are still providing entertainment to the masses? What sporting fan doesn't have a memory or hasn't heard a great story from another fan who witnessed one of their sporting exploits?
To be fair to the professional athlete, I think we must also consider the unseen expenses that each athlete will incur during the average playing year. They will not keep all of those millions to themselves. If they are paid $10 million dollars in a season they will likely owe around 50% of those earnings to the U.S. government. From the remaining $5 million they will owe another $1 million to their agent. From the remaining $4 million they will pay for any personal trainers and chefs to stay in peak performance shape. They will also need to pay a portion for the services of various accountants, lawyers, and stockbrokers to manage the record keeping such earnings will require. They will spend another sizable sum in travel expenses related to keeping their public persona at a level commiserate with their pay.
And this is all just when we consider the top stars in the league. The average player in the league only earns the league minimum which is dependent upon the number of years of experience the player has in the league from $285,000 per year for a player with no experience in the league to $820,000 for a player with more than a decade of experience.
Also factor in that the average NFL player's career is only 4 years and you are talking about a huge income risk each player takes every time they step onto the football field.
In a country like America where we value the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, would it not be un-American to deny a just income for the efforts produced by each player?
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Comments
Where do the salaries end? When is enough enough? Five years we need A-rod making 120$ Million per swing?
Unfortunately they are not "serving" anyone but themselves. The troops don't entertain, educate, or enlighten the world. They are merely tools for two simple purposes: To destroy human life and to bankrupt this country over irrational fears.
In a capitalist society, the market should determine the value. If the market deems A-Rod worth $120 million per swing, then who are we to argue? In any case the amount will not be determined by you and I. It will be determined by the MLB and their corporate sponsors.
By the way, the analogy is not the same because we are forced to pay for troops we don't want through taxes that are nearly impossible to have repealed in a representative government. That is not the case when it comes to sports. Fans can vote with their pocketbook. If you think they are paying too much to their employees, don't ever turn on a channel with a sport on it and don't attend any of the games.
While some of you may not like sports, some of us don't mind being entertained at a cost. The diversion from the mess this country has become is often worth the price.
If you don't agree with the politics in the White House, by all means, dissent. I'll be the first one to hand you a megaphone and show you the soap box. When it comes to our troops, that's different..
My father wasn't some mindless, soulless zombie who fell into the military because it was a last resort. My father was an honorable man who loved what he did. The 20 years that he spent in the Marine Corps, he was the epitome of what a Marine should be. He was a favorite of former Commandants who would make special visits to where my father was in the field with the rest of Alpha Company and KAAT Platoon on Camp Lejeune. He was painted, photographed, and profiled by many during his career for his dedication and his drive to serve his country.
I grew up around Marines, around Jarheads who had been living and breathing that life since before I was born, and around ones who were young enough to be an older brother to me. I have friends who are serving overseas currently, away from their girlfriends/wives/kids, and I lost a very close friend in a suicide bombing in Mosul in December 2004. I grew up on military bases and spent my childhood learning the most important lessons about life from a man who willingly wore the uniform and carried the weapons and, as you so eloquently put it, was "merely [a] tool for two simple purposes: To destroy human life and to bankrupt this country over irrational fears."
You know what? If you ask me, the men and women who sign up to serve our country aren't stupid or deserve pity. Instead, they should be applauded by people like us who weren't brave enough or strong enough to do the job ourselves.
Men like my father, and people like my active duty friends Nick, Kyle, Jason, Cris, Bradley, Josh, Matthew, David, Lauren, and Amanda, don't deserve this kind of generalization and blatant disregard from someone who can justify paying someone millions of dollars for throwing a football.
Hate war and think what we're doing over there is bullshit? Great. Me too. Have more respect for professional athletes who whine and bitch about their multi-million dollar contracts than for our troops? I gotta disagree with you there.
@Shannon: Your argument would hold more sway with me if I were someone who did not grow up as the son of a retired military man with 22 years of experience. I know exactly what the majority of military people are like. They are usually mindless zombies that do only what they are told. There are many countries who do not have this relentless military mindset that we seem to hold dear as a country. Those countries tend to have less violence, better education, better health care, and generally more active citizens. The military culture hasn't made us a stronger and more unified as a country in a very long time. Rather it has weakened our resolve. We waste money funding a military to defend against fears that in hindsight always turn out to be toothless or could be handled diplomatically. The last meaningful military engagement that improved our economy, diplomacy, and standing was World War II.
Also, I don't know what, if any professional athletes you are watching, but honestly the ones on teams I follow do not complain about what they earn and are quite happy to have the opportunity to do something they love for a living. But then again, all people who work in a field they enjoy and have an affinity for are basically hobbyists.
Sounds like your Dad was a great marketing gimmick for the military. Besides, I know from many of the men my father served with that career military men are generally in the military that long because the retirement pay is so nice, and because it serves their resume well for any future political office or appointments. Who wants to jump ship at the eight year mark when you know that if you just stay another twelve years you can get a free check every month for the rest of your life.
Did you also happen to think that if your friend hadn't been foolish enough to have joined the military at all that they wouldn't have been in Mosul in the first place?
As I have explained, anyone in the arts and entertainment who make billions of people happy and inspired on a daily basis is worth more than the average military jarhead. Just out of curiosity, how many of those ruthless Blackwater mercenaries are former American military men? I'll tell you that at least one of them, the CEO Erik Prince is a former Navy SEAL. Their contract in Iraq was revoked as of September 17th for killing civilians without following standard rules of engagement.
Many of their troops are ex-military. What does that tell you about the character of men we are molding in the military. That the military builds character is a fallacy. It creates robots who do what they are told no matter how much duress you put them under.
Dwight Eisenhower, a well known military man himself once warned us about "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex..Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together." Just a thought.
Now as this post was about professional athletes and their pay and has spun out of control onto subjects that are not related, I am going to close comments.