In the 1996-1997 season, NBA’s Michael Jordan was paid $33,450,000 for the year, or just over $1.06 per second, an outrageous amount of money for a player to play the game he loves to play. He was paid $178,000 a day whether he played or not. There is no doubt that professional athletes are talented, but when Kevin Garnett, who is not even a college graduate, makes over 16 million dollars a year, that becomes a problem. While that may seem outrageous, deliberations over pro athletes salaries are nothing new. When baseball’s Babe Ruth was reportedly asked about earning a larger salary than the United States President Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression in the 1930’s Ruth defended his salary in response, “Why not?
“The three most lucrative college football teams in 2005 – Notre Dame, Ohio State, and the University of Texas – each generated more than $60 million for their institutions. That number, which comes from the Department of Education, fails to account for the millions of dollars alumni donated to their alma maters because they were so proud of their football teams” p.621. The NCAA plays a big factor in this whole situation because it makes sure that players get no pension what so ever. The NCAA says that there is no need to pay football players because they all have scholarships and their education is paid for and that is something that football players don’t take advantage of. Some argue and say that education is the most important thing in college but it’s not to the football players.
And this is what footballers get paid hundreds of thousands of pounds a week for! Ridiculous! Steven Gerrard reportedly earns £140,000 a week for kicking a ball around for ninety minutes. On the other hand a first class private earns just £14,000 a week for which they risk getting seriously hurt and probably traumatized for life and to support themselves and their families. Some footballers earn over 200 times what a soldier does!
The National Endowment for Financial Education estimates that 70 percent of Americans who suddenly accumulate large sums of money will be broke within the next few weeks (DeLucca). There is a lack of accountability for athletes. Sportspersons that gross millions have a tendency to spend recklessly. In the documentary “Broke”, former athletes speak of reckless spending that made them poor. One athlete explained how he bought $30,000 earrings, and did not think twice about it.
In this essay I will discuss the big difference between the salaries of athletes and other professions like doctors, teachers, and lawyers. I will be giving my opinion on whether the pay difference is fair or not. Some people argue that it is unfair for sports professionals to earn so much money just for entertaining people (mostly men). Comparing the salaries of the two, an average doctor earns under $500,000 on a yearly basis while athletes make an outstanding amount of $30,000,000 and above. For example, an American boxer called Floyd Mayweather makes a staggering $85,000,000 per year, not including all the money he gets from commercials and other contracts.
In this essay I will discuss how this statement is widely recognised as fact, however how it may have less value in today’s society than for example 100 years ago, and how in some cases it may not be so, and if so how it could alter the future? Millions of pounds get pumped into prisons every year, and they require a substantial amount of funding to be maintained. Specifically, a recent statistic has shown that the government have decided to spend £1.2 billion on 10,500 new prisons by next year. It also costs the state thousands a year to sentence people and to maintain prisoners. To put simple, prisons cost an awful lot.
Who is benefiting from outsourcing? Investor, shareholders, and American consumers profit from outsourcing. However, the countries that the jobs are outsourced to benefit the most, for example, housing jobs for foreign companies boost the economy by increasing employment at the expense of millions of American jobs. For decades, jobs have been moving away from the United States. James Park (2010,
A famous movie star can receive several millions of dollars for a single film as well as a football player has a one hundred million contract with a certain club. Like every problem, the question about the salary of actors and athletes has its supporters and opponents, but let us dwell on the positive sides of the high payment. It does not worth mentioning that actors and athletes work hard to achieve success in their profession; they have to keep to the standards in everything: shape, weight, fashion, etc. They spend more than 12 hours working on the role in the movie or training in the gym. The most reasonable explanation of the high payment is that these people present not only themselves but the whole country on the international arena in sports and art, so they should be supported and praised as they create the image of their country.
Obama, who announced this a couple of weeks ago, is in favor of taxing the rich citizens (making over 250,000 dollars a year as a family) a larger percent than the poor and middle class. You may have heard of the Bush Tax Cuts--this is when George Bush reduced taxes on the rich who were paying a larger percent of their money to the government than the poor and middle class. This also goes into the whole socialism aspect that many people have said Obama takes part in. Republicans are called conservatives, and this usually means that they are more for everyone for themselves. Democrats, or liberals, are usually in favor of taxing the poor less, and of healthcare for people who cannot afford it--this is known as Obamacare, which was repealed because it was considered unconstitutional.
The income of famous athletes varies from athlete to athlete depending on salary as well as endorsements they may have. According to Forbes list The World’s Highest Paid Athletes (June 2013) the highest paid athlete is Tiger Woods with pay of $78.1 million in total that being a salary of $13.1 million and $65 million in endorsement deals. Comparing this to the average salary of an American which is estimated at $51,371 according to 2012 census ACS survey (US Household Income). The difference in pay is remarkably less by the millions. This differential leads to people feeling that athletes get over paid.