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Why Are Professional Athletes Overpaid

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Why Are Professional Athletes Overpaid
Professional athletes, specifically in the NFL, NBA, and MLB, often are rewarded extremely substantial contracts and lucrative endorsement deals and it has been argued that their salaries should be reduced to smaller wages but they are paid in the way that they are for good reason. There merchandise is sold for more money than their salary is worth, the risk getting injured is high and they can only do for their job for a short amount of time.

Athletes are not overpaid because the Teams make much more money than what they are paying their players. In Major League Baseball,“Almost 35 percent of the total league wide-revenue is earned from ticket sales.Television and media rights constitute another important stream of revenue. In 2012 MLB reached
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Knowing that athletes career could end in a split second, it is important for one to realise that even the strongest athletes get career ending injuries. Often times athletic careers come to a rapid end even as early as high school. “High school athletes account for an estimated 2 million injuries and 500,000 doctor visits and 30,000 hospitalizations each year. ” The evidence suggests that the risk is very high when you are a professional athlete.As a general rule if you are taking a bigger risk you expect a bigger payout and that is what is going through the athletes head that it can all end in a split …show more content…

“As we turn our gaze back to the world of professional sport, the outlook becomes very different. Only the very best, in most physically demanding sports, can hope to have a career lasting beyond 15 years. After sacrificing all the joys of the teenage years we take for granted, pro sportsmen and women are sent out to pasture at the ripe old age of 34 or 35, with no discernable or marketable skills.”The evidence suggests that the athletes may not be able to get enough money to last them the rest of their lives so the need to work 10 times more than the average to make sure.As a general rule, when a person needs to perform they want to have guarantees so they request more money.

Many may say that professional athletes are overpaid because they are playing a game for a job and earn way more than the average person. But Playing a professional sport is not a game because the sports industry is worth 80 billion dollars and only 30 percent of that money goes to the players. That means 56 billion goes goes to the owners. Therefore the owners are willing to pay a lot of money for a big name player if that means they will get more


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