Sports in America Today

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SPORTS IN AMERICA TODAY Are sports more important than other jobs? America, once the home of the American dream, that you could work hard, and through your labors, earn a fortune, has taken quite a drastic turn in the wrong direction in recent years. Once the land where we praised innovators such as the Wright brothers, Thomas Edison, and Benjamin Franklin, we have recently turned our attentions to other matters, particularly sports. In my opinion, the amount of money we pay sports players is unreasonable, and quite frankly, the money could be put to much better use than Sunday night entertainment. First, let’s start with a statistic you may be familiar with: the cost of a sports event. On average, it is estimated that the cost for one person to attend a sports event is $100 for a ticket and concessions. A typical sports event has an average of about 28,000 people in attendance. That’s approximately 2.8 million dollars made each game. In the MLB, NBA, and NFL alone there are a total of 3,906 games every year. What most people don’t realize is where this net figure of around $11 billion every year goes. So here’s a breakdown. Expense | Percentage of revenue | Approximate dollar amount | Player Salary | 61% | $6,671,448,000.00 | Team Costs | 5% | $546,840,000.00 | Stadium Upkeep | 9% | $984,312,000.00 | Admin Costs | 18% | $1,968,624,000.00 | Interest | 3% | $328,104,000.00 | Taxes | 3% | $328,104,000.00 | Net Profit | 1% | $109,368,000.00 | A few more sports statistics: there are 3,413 professional sports players in the U.S., and 840 coaches. Neither position requires any sort of formal education. However, the average sports player makes approximately $1.645 million per year, and the average coach makes $2.538 million. To put that in perspective, there are 3.5 million homeless people in the United States today, 1.35 million of whom are

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