High paid athletes, do they deserve it?

[JustHatched 12,123]

Do you think athletes deserve high salaries? Why or why not.

 

 

[omarcomin71 3,892]

It's a supply and demand kind of thing.  If there's a big enough fanbase the money is going to be there.  The talent deserves the lions share.  Just hope they do the right thing and give back a bit to the community. 

[ScottyB 2,086]

I've had this conversation with a few other people here and in my opinion absolutely not! As Omar said, its the supply and demand and most of the population enjoy watching them and spend big money on their products so it is never going to change.

 

What's disappointing when you compare it is that the scientists and humanitarians that are devoting their life to making the world a better place will never be paid anywhere near what these people do. There are countless people working on cures for cancer and no one could care less. Even when they finally come up with something I doubt they will ever be paid as much or get as much attention in the mainstream media as a football team or athlete ever would.

 

That's the world we live in I guess.

[Fido_le_muet 5,198]

They deserve big salaries, but some of them, mostly in the most broadcast sports like football, basket, tennis or us football for instance, are way too big and vastly exagerated.

It's indecent and should havesome kind of regulation.

[djw180 6,977]

As others have said it is basically supply and demand. If someone does a "job" where thousands of people want to pay to watch them then you can't ague against earning vast sums of money from it, whether they be in sport, music, film or whatever. But it can get out of hand and agents, owners etc start to take the fans for granted, knowing they will pay a lot to see their team.

Edited May 25, 2016 by djw180

[Squirrel 5,180]

There should be a cap on the higher salaries and use the money saved to increase the pay for the middle order athletes. In a high impact sport such as rugby, career ending injuries are very common. For the top players they will probably earn enough in a short career to enable them to live comfortably for life if they invest wisely but the average player whose devoted his life to the game, hasn't quite made it to the top but ends up with a shortened career then his life can be ruined because of this. 

When players are earning in excess of 100k per week it's obscene. Yes they may only be at that level for a few years but there's only so much money you can spend in a lifetime, better to have more players earning medium wages than a handful of individuals earning silly money.

[zmurko 7,622]

Absolutely not! Mostly talking about highest paying sports (european football, NBA, ...), even an average player earns a ridiculous amount of money for basically running around and kicking the ball. Not to mention most of them are too dumb to handle those sums of money and then you see them buying a new ferrari every month. It's disgusting. But the money makes the world go around., so there's not much we can do about it..

 

[Ninja 719]

Oh hell no. As stated before what about those scientists etc. How about more money for the military (soldiers)? People are risking their lives on the other side of the world and in my opinion they dont get the pay they deserve, especially help for the veterans who suffer from PTSD etc.

[grjkie 727]

No

[DavidCore89 7,404]

Yeah, why not?

If an owner of a sports team wants to pay a team member 250K per week outta his own money then it's got nothing to do with me or anyone else really.

Lots moan about salaries, but most people don't take into account the tax these sports stars pay out... Millions per year, they're also taxed at a higher rate in the UK than a guy doing a normal 9-5 job.

In 2015 Wayne Rooney earned a reported £13 million in salary only, imagine the tax he contributed towards our fine country 

Footballers had salary caps before and it turned the club owners into greedy bastards while players got paid next to nothing for doing the business on the pitch, I believe Jimmy Hill helped to change that.

EDIT: However, I think soldiers, doctors, firefighters etc should be paid more.

Edited May 25, 2016 by DavidCore89

[BMSTANG 182]

Its not like athletes have an entire lifetime to span their career. Most professional athletes only have a few years, maybe a decade, sometimes longer before they are too old to continue at the highest level. They gotta earn what they can during that time, and for that reason I feel they do deserve their high salaries.

[Sinister 2,583]

Not a fan of sports so of course my vote is screw that crap. Hundreds of millions to play an adult version of a child's game is crazy. On flip side, they get paid that because the money I there. Why do you think tickets are so expensive and a cup of ice with some Coke in it costs you 5 bucks? 

I love hearing them talk about having a family to take care of while making tens of millions in a few years. Cry me a river, try doing it on 25k a year.

A large majority just piss the money away on material possesions, drugs, etc anyways.

[LimeGreenLegend 4,275]

Nope.  

[Banketelli 3,655]

Of course they don't deserve those crazy figures. But as already stated, as long as the interest and money are there, that's the way it's gonna be. Even if a salary cap was put in place, they'd still earn lots of money through sponsors. 

The argument about them having to earn what they can while they can, which I have heard quite a few times, is flawed. When they retire they might be old in the world of sports, but in the real world they're still young people and there's absolutely nothing stopping them from finding another way to make income. 

[pete_95973 4,383]

18 hours ago, ScottyB said:

I've had this conversation with a few other people here and in my opinion absolutely not! As Omar said, its the supply and demand and most of the population enjoy watching them and spend big money on their products so it is never going to change.

 

What's disappointing when you compare it is that the scientists and humanitarians that are devoting their life to making the world a better place will never be paid anywhere near what these people do. There are countless people working on cures for cancer and no one could care less. Even when they finally come up with something I doubt they will ever be paid as much or get as much attention in the mainstream media as a football team or athlete ever would.

 

That's the world we live in I guess.

I am pretty sure if someone cures cancer then that person will be richer than any athlete that ever lived.  Problem is they don't get paid really until they do it which might be impossible.  Athletes can perform poorly and still get paid which is frustrating.

 

[ScottyB 2,086]

7 hours ago, pete_95973 said:

I am pretty sure if someone cures cancer then that person will be richer than any athlete that ever lived.  Problem is they don't get paid really until they do it which might be impossible.  Athletes can perform poorly and still get paid which is frustrating.

 

It depends on how they sold it. I doubt they are in it for the money (since they get paid terribly until they have results) so I would hope that they would make enough from it to live comfortably and give the rest away. Not to go into the big pharmacy debate but if they got their hands on it I'm sure they'd try to jack the price up and make it unaffordable to most people for a very long time.

High paid athletes get paid stupid amounts of money though and it would be interesting to see how much they earn in comparison to people who have advanced society through other means. It all comes down to the individual though but could you imagine if you had the cure and held it from the public? 

This guys tried and it didn't turn out so well

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3243938/Ex-hedge-funder-32-hated-man-internet-defends-jacking-prices-AIDS-medication-5500.html

[DavidCore89 7,404]

Christiano Ronaldo becomes sports highest paid star over the last 12 months. Forbes' annual list of the world's wealthiest athletes shows.

The influential business magazine's list has been led by either boxer Floyd Mayweather or golfer Tiger Woods for the past decade-and-a-half.

But with Mayweather retiring and Woods not playing because of injury, the Portugal captain has risen to the top.

His off-pitch earnings of $32m (£22m) include a $13m-a-year deal (£8.96m) with sportswear firm Nike - which has partnerships with half of the top 100 stars.

In full, the top 10 list is as follows:

Cristiano Ronaldo - football ($88m/£60.6m)

Lionel Messi - football ($81.4m/£56.1m)

LeBron James - basketball ($77.2m/£53.2m)

Roger Federer - tennis ($67.8m/£46.7m)

Kevin Durant - basketball (£56.2m/£38.7m)

Novak Djokovic - tennis ($55.8m/£38.46m)

Cam Newton - American football ($53.1m/£36.6m)

Phil Mickelson - golf ($52.9m/£36.46m)

Jordan Spieth - golf ($52.8m/£36.39m)

Kobe Bryant - basketball ($50m/£34.46m).

Since Forbes started to track earnings in 1990, Christiano Ronaldo and Micheal Jordan are the only team-based stars to ever top the list.

Edited June 9, 2016 by DavidCore89