Do Pro-Athletes/Coaches get paid enough?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 1:37 am

The sports industry is a multi-billion dollar industry just for individual teams, let alone the entire franchise. But players only see a fraction of that. Which is especially interesting because A.) the fans really are willing to pay that much extra for a marginal increase in performance and B.) the players and coaches can't be easily replaced. It's not like filmmaking where if you try really hard you can find a replacement for Will Smith if he makes outrageous enough demands; the fans want the best and will punish franchises financially that go for suboptimal replacements.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sat Nov 05, 2011 1:48 am

My opinion on sports is thus:

If the industry is generating the money, the players and coaches should have the lion's share of it. Note that I think professional sports is kind of lame and I don't understand why people do spend the money to see it, but business is universal.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 1:52 am

yes, they get paid enough. it boggles the mind to watch a leftist demand people making millions upon millions of dollars to be paid more. or is this some sort of trick where the idea is to pay them so we can tax them.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 1:59 am

The amount of money in sports is a joke. Why are we allowing abstraction of service to lead to poor consumer decisions that facilitate ridiculous amounts of greed and profit for relatively little contribution to the economy (few jobs)?

The entire concept of "a fair pay" when discussing the difference between millionaires and billionaires is ridiculous.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sat Nov 05, 2011 2:05 am

Psychic Robot wrote:yes, they get paid enough. it boggles the mind to watch a leftist demand people making millions upon millions of dollars to be paid more. or is this some sort of trick where the idea is to pay them so we can tax them.

So, your argument is that people in some office that don't do any of the work should get the money and not the people actually out there?

I'd say that's typical rightist thinking, so my mind is not boggled.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 2:12 am

DSMatticus wrote:The amount of money in sports is a joke. Why are we allowing abstraction of service to lead to poor consumer decisions that facilitate ridiculous amounts of greed and profit for relatively little contribution to the economy (few jobs)?

Because regardless of how much money players get paid, the peripheral industries around the sports still happens. I mean take WWE: the amount of money that gets made in tickets and pay-per-views is substantial, but nowhere near as much as the video games or toys or t-shirts or whatever. Even if the wrestlers were working for free it'd barely increase the profitability of the industry.

While you could make an argument that more of that money should be going to janitors and lighting crew and bookies, I specifically chose professional sports because the players/coaches are the industry and fans are willing to pay the difference in performance. How much more responsible Johnny Dep was for the profitability of the Pirates of the Carribean than the costume director is an open question, but it's pretty clear that as for as professional sports go, the athletes/coaches generate most of the revenue.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 2:16 am

Psychic Robot wrote:yes, they get paid enough. it boggles the mind to watch a leftist demand people making millions upon millions of dollars to be paid more.

I'm actually trying to leverage this into an argument about collectives/syndicates (i.e. worker-owned industries) and professional sports was picked because the actual drivers of profit are pretty easy to identify.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 2:24 am

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:So, your argument is that people in some office that don't do any of the work should get the money and not the people actually out there?

I'd say that's typical rightist thinking, so my mind is not boggled.

actually we should be paying the entire sports industry less.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sat Nov 05, 2011 2:39 am

Psychic Robot wrote:
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:So, your argument is that people in some office that don't do any of the work should get the money and not the people actually out there?

I'd say that's typical rightist thinking, so my mind is not boggled.
actually we should be paying the entire sports industry less.

I agree with that, but other than not paying them anything myself there isn't a lot I can do. I am just saying that the people out on the fields making the money deserve it more than jackasses in suits in an office somewhere.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 2:50 am

I agree but they're both overpaid, but once you're past the million mark, I don't think it matters. if I were making $150,000 and my boss were making $150 million I'd basically be okay with that arrangement. that's more than enough money for me to be content.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sat Nov 05, 2011 10:50 am

Indeed. If the people who are making 150 million would pay their people 150,000, then we'd be much better off.

Ikeren · Post by **Ikeren** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 7:13 pm

I'd support a million dollar wage cap (also in other industries, not just sports). I think a person can probably live reasonably comfortably on a million dollars a year. I hope. I'm not entirely sure, since I live reasonably comfortably on ~25000$/year. But I don't really know what living comfortably looks like, perhaps. So a million dollars, I think that's reasonable, perhaps?

To deal with the "I made a million dollars, I'm not working anymore"; put in a system of over-caps if they're still motivated by money (IE, if you're truly excellent, +500000$); and non-money motivations wherever possible (prestige, awards, etcetera).

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 7:36 pm

A million dollars a year sounds like a lot, until you remember that they lose a third of it to taxes, and their career is super short (less than 3 years, on average, for the NBA). $2 million dollars might last them for the rest of their life if they invest wisely, but it's not rich people money--they're going to have a net income of maybe 50k/year.

It's crazy that pro sports brings in the money that it does. But the players aren't the ones we should be going after.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 7:41 pm

I think that the sports industries should pay more money to people in second-tier, bush leagues, and semi-pro teams. Yes, LeBron makes a fuck tonne of money, and yes he is still probably underpaid considering the amount of revenue that he brings in. But these sports couldn't exist if there weren't people playing the games trying to be as good as one of the stars.

Being an athlete is a pretty crazy thing to do. You end up retiring at 32 and you probably get crazy injuries first. You torque your body way out of its normal capabilities, and you run a good chance of death secondary to an enlarged heart in your fifties. Furthermore, only a tiny fraction of the people who have the drive to give it their all have actually won the genetics lottery to actually be able to compete at the top level for even a year.

If you want people to dedicate their lives to destroying their bodies so that there is a tiny chance that they could be the next Jordan, you need to set up incentives for that to happen. And one of the easiest incentives to set up is to make it so that people who are scraping by in the semi-pro leagues can eat regularly.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 8:21 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Being an athlete is a pretty crazy thing to do. You end up retiring at 32 and you probably get crazy injuries first. You torque your body way out of its normal capabilities, and you run a good chance of death secondary to an enlarged heart in your fifties.

It boggles my mind that pro wrestling is worse. Seriously, I followed a list of "dead pro wrestlers" (I was wondering what had happened to a wrestler I hadn't seen in a while, so correctly assumed early death) and most of them are in their early thirties. Or younger. Now the risks are real, sure, but it still seems like it'd be less dangerous than gridiron, where you don't actually know from the script that a guy is about to slam into you from behind and drop you head-first on the ground.

And apparently the most dangerous sport for women is cheerleading*. Considering how much joy they bring to the world, they should be paid a whole lot more for their efforts and risks.

*Yes, turns out it's a sport. I never saw cheerleaders that weren't in a shower, I thought that was just what they did.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 8:53 pm

The most frustrating bit about cheerleading is that much like with amateur wrestling everyone can do just about everything right and odds are still good that a few kids on the team will strain a shoulder or will suffer a few dislocated or broken fingers by the end of the year to go along with the usual cadre of leg and foot injuries that plague just about every sport.

Anyway, it kills me that so few people seriously seem to understand how fragile athletic careers are or how much the genetic lottery really does come into it. For example, I personally know people who played off Greg Oden's herniated disc &one short leg combo as being a non-issue because they've had doctors who say you can live a normal life after suffering from either of those problems even if there's some complications. Which is fine, except that being 7 feet tall and having a long NBA career isn't normal and limb length discrepancies are known for at least exacerbating back and leg injuries.

K · Post by K » Sun Nov 06, 2011 6:13 am

I really love how anti-free market this whole thread is.

I mean, once you start arguing that any workers should receive a fair share of corporate profits and/or be fairly compensated for their share of the labors, the fundamental relationships underpinning capitalism fall apart.

The whole idea of capitalism is to pay your workers as little as possible to maximize your own profit and let the market keep wages low because people will compete for limited jobs by lowering their own wages.

It might look a little weird when we talk about NFL athletes with a base salary of 500K, but it's not like those guys are employable anywhere else.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sun Nov 06, 2011 9:44 am

I really love how anti-free market this whole thread is.

I mean, once you start arguing that any workers should receive a fair share of corporate profits and/or be fairly compensated for their share of the labors, the fundamental relationships underpinning capitalism fall apart.

The whole idea of capitalism is to pay your workers as little as possible to maximize your own profit and let the market keep wages low because people will compete for limited jobs by lowering their own wages.

what we need is the government to run everything without that pesky profit motive.

godspeed, comrade.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sun Nov 06, 2011 12:48 pm

Alright, so PR thinks that paying your workers what they're worth makes you a Nazi. That's a lol right there.

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Sun Nov 06, 2011 2:32 pm

PR, you missed a few:

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sun Nov 06, 2011 5:54 pm

I almost did obama just for the lol factor

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Nov 07, 2011 3:51 am

Psychic Robot wrote:I almost did obama just for the lol factor

It's an effective tactic. It pisses off Conservatives because it wasn't their dog in the fight that won, it pisses off liberals because they don't like being called socialists, and it pisses off socialists because they don't want to be associated with him either.

Tea Party members don't count, because the ones I've met are pretty much always pissed off. There's no challenge in pissing off a tea party patriot, therefore no points awarded.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 4:19 am

This thread just gets lazier and lazier.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 6:05 am

You're right. This thread got derailed. I was going to ask a follow-up question but it's barely related to the original question of this thread.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 2:29 pm

Some pro-athletes are way overpayed in for example football with the multi million contracts and transfers. While the pro-athletes in not very popular sports like basketball etc actually need a job on the side even if they are in the highest league in the country to actually make enough money to survive.