Preview

Salary Caps In Professional Sports Essay

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
871 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Salary Caps In Professional Sports Essay
Salary Caps in Athletics: How Much is the Game Really Effected?

Should professional sports leagues, such as the MLB and NBA, implement a salary cap? This has become a rising issue in the last few years, involving players and the leagues and teams for which they play. Salary caps are an amount of money that a team is able to spend on its players. For instance, each team gets a 64 million dollar spending limit in which they have to divide between each player on the team. It has led to numerous lockouts and strikes by the players because they feel it is unfair. Salary caps in professional sports should be abolished because they effect player performance, are prone to abuse, and cause some players to be paid unfairly. Athletic ability is not only a talent, but a hard-earned trait for some athletes. Through days, months, and years of training, they prepare to perform to the best of their abilities on the playing field. Athletic performance has improved drastically from the years 1940 to 2000 (Lewis). Along with this increase of physical ability also came an increase in pay rates. There have been new systems set in place for athletes, such as free agency. The purpose of free agency is to enhance competition levels between players whom are fighting for an open spot on a
…show more content…
Brent Mayne was a Major League player whom was paid $2.5 million over the course of a year, yet his batting average was well below the expected standard at only a .238 (Bradbury 75). Many other players who have higher capabilities than Mayne are paid less, the only difference being the name on their uniforms. The Houston Rockets signed a rookie for $6.2 million , while Charles Barkley, with years of experience, signed for a mere $75,000 a year with the Philadelphia 76ers (DiLasco). This is where collective bargaining plays an important role. Collective bargaining is trying

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    To begin with, I believe Major League Baseball players are way overpaid, and have no idea what it is like to live off a regular American salary. According to baseball writer, Richard Cato, many rookie athletes are worried more about how much money there are going to make, before they even think about throwing their first pitch in there major league career. Almost 10 years ago former cubs pitcher, Mark Prior, argued and argued with team management that his 10 million dollar contract was not going to be enough to support himself and his family (par 5.) This is where my problem begins with Athletes being overpaid. They complain about not making enough money each year, where middle and lower class Americans manage to live off there much smaller salaries. I personally think the league…

    • 1247 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Freakonomics Analysis

    • 347 Words
    • 2 Pages

    For example, athletes can come up with incentives that can develop them with hard work or cheating.…

    • 347 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The short answer to this question is no. Paying the athletes can only make these athletic teams more competitive. This system would give the teams that never envisioned playing for a championship a chance to go after the star players, and actually having as chance to get them. People are afraid of change, but the world is changing all around us.…

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    College athletes are given a scholarship based on their abilities in a certain sport. Each college athlete has the chance to improve their chance of becoming a better athlete in any sport they play, but they have to put their mind to it and work hard every day to become better. On average, a college athlete will spend between thirty and forty hours a week just trying to get better and become the best athlete that they can be and live up to their potential. Every year a college program will spend a significant amount of money on a scholarship for athletes for a certain sport. College athletes should be paid according to the sport they play.…

    • 831 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Athletic Meritocracy

    • 1181 Words
    • 5 Pages

    This athletic meritocracy reflects the system we see in place of society - those who exemplify certain qualities, such as teamwork, problem solving, and communication, are more likely to be rewarded with employment or promotions. If certain applicants were to use other advantages to obtain these positions, it would be seen as cheating the system and unfair to other vying for the job. Therefore, enhancements to improve capability would be frowned upon or discriminated against, to encourage…

    • 1181 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The current Collective Bargaining Agreement includes a limited salary cap and entry-level salary cap, and expires September 15th, 2004. It is no longer successful at controlling rapid growth in player salaries and forming a direct link between salary growth and league revenues. The Unified Report of Operations claims that the majority of NHL teams have lost money in recent years. Owners believe that there are “major deficiencies in the current contract that has led to significant financial losses and a competitive imbalance. Smaller teams can’t compete with larger teams; therefore the league can’t be competitive. There is a transition from a local market to a league-wide market, so players’ salaries are escalating to levels that are unsustainable. Entry-level salary caps are ineffective due to signing bonuses. The NHL revenue growth equals 173%, while the players’ salary growth equals 261% over the term of the CBA. The players’ salaries account for 75% of NHL revenues, which is much higher than other sports. Owners believe a mechanism is needed to control player salaries and tie them to revenues. Players question the validity of the financial information, URO, and Levitt Report. Players argue against the proposed solutions and say free market forces should determine players’ salaries. There is no validity in the owners’ financial statements, which may support that the lack of revenues is due…

    • 610 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Today, college athletes are working every day, 24/7. These athletes are working day in and out to sure that they meet academic standards and also to keep up with their sport when they’re playing competitive. They not being rewarded or credited for their achievements. They are also living with no money. Since these athletes are living off with no money, they are tempting to take the money from their sports booster club or others donation that are helping them. The problem with this is that athletes are not only getting themselves in trouble but also getting their athletic departments in trouble as well.…

    • 571 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Imagine this: you are in the military force, you risk your life on a day-to-day basis for our country's freedom. If you survive fighting, you sleep on an uncomfortable, rock hard bed and eat nauseating food. You work your tail off, yet you actually make less than the average American does yearly. Now, take into perspective, perhaps a professional boxer: they may risk their lives, but it's for our entertainment, not for our safety. When they are done wrestling, they go back to their five star hotels and eat gourmet food. They train, and yes, they may have worked hard to get to where they are, but they're out here making millions per fight, which is way more than what the average American makes. Look closer, should an entertainer really get paid such a profound amount for one fight, rather than those who work to…

    • 750 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Topic I decided to debate was should college athletes be paid a salary? The side that I decided to pick was the pro side. To begin, every year new college athletes are drafted, they are excited to play a college sport and represent their school.”Journalist Michael Wilbon has written that seeing the $11 billion deal between the NCAA and CBS/Turner Sports for March Madness between 2011 and 2024 prompted him to change his mind about paying student-athletes. First of all, this deal shows the amount of money the NCAA is bringing in over the course of one month alone. March Madness is one of the most watched sporting events in history. Not to mention the money being made off this event is not trickling down to the players, who are the stars of the tournament.”…

    • 1064 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    College athlete salary has been a controversial issue for many years. Many debate that they do not need a salary and that all they need is the scholarship that they were given to get into the school. At the same time people argue that they need compensation for putting their bodies and careers on the line, they bring in lots of profit for the school, and need money moving forward in their professional career and in life after college. Kevin Ware, guard for the 2013 NCAA men’s basketball national champion Louisville Cardinals, is a prime example of athletes putting their bodies and potentially their careers on the line for their school. In the elite eight round of the NCAA tournament against the No. 2 ranked Duke, with Louisville up by one point with Duke in possession of the ball, one of the Duke players attempts a three point shot and Ware jumps to block it and lands awkwardly.…

    • 719 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Athletes strive to be better than their competitors by improving their performance. They are encouraged for doing so, and it is what all athletes want to do. The concern is that, the method some athletes use is unfair and unjust.…

    • 709 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As a fan of basketball I know how useful this rule is to create a more even playing field. In NBA basketball there is a salary cap of $58.679 million dollars but by paying tax to the league you can go over this by $13.069 million dollars. If you look at the NBA superstar talent is divided out pretty well. As it would impossible to get all the best players in one team unless they all took big wage cuts. If this was brought into football we would not have teams dominating just because of their money. My plan is a 40 million pound salary cap with no option to go over. If every player on a 25 player team was paid equally this would give each player 1.6 million pounds a year which is still an awful lot of money. Ideally the plan would have teams built around one or two star players. Then have the rest of the players on 500,000 to 1 million pound wages.…

    • 708 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There’s a great deal of controversy over the topic of whether professional athletes are overpaid or not, as compared to teachers, police officers, and firefighters. Jennifer Fontaine, a sports promoter, clearly states that she believes professional athletes are not over paid, due to their careers being short lived due to any serious injury, or injuries, that could end that highly paid career.…

    • 612 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Do you think that athletes get paid way too much money? Athletes gets paid more then the person who controls our country. Also the franchises get payed more then the athlete and that’s why athletes get paid so much. Salary comparison, respect and prestige, and fans supporting the team is why pro athletes make so much money. One of the first reasons why athletes get paid way too much is because of all of the fans that buy things to support the teams.…

    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Salary Cap

    • 879 Words
    • 4 Pages

    As economists like to point out, if you want less of something, you should put a tax on it and player salaries are no exception. Teams of different sport like basketball, baseball, soccer and football spend a lot of money on their players which is ridiculous not just for the fact that they paying that amount of money but the fact that millions of money which can be minimize are being paid to a player that if he decide not to play, no one will harm player, which brings me to saying that reduce the ability of the richest teams to bid up the price of players and, salaries are sure to fall and mandatory would be on salary cap towards what professional athletes make.…

    • 879 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays