Our Money To Professional Athletes example essay topic

1,229 words
Amazing, ground breaking and shocking". Those are words to describe the inflation in contracts in the world of sports. As player salaries increase higher than gas prices, the quality of the teams is down. It seems as though the only reason professional athletes play is for the money. It's like a race to see who can manage to get the largest amount of money. I believe athletics are only a game, so why should athletes get paid so much?

Television stations sometimes try to promote some athletes. The athletes let the money go to their head, so they keep asking for more. It really seems obvious that athletes get paid too much. Some athletes are extremely good, but there are very few professional athletes that deserve as much as they ask for. Most professional athletes get paid more than any president ever has. Does that seem right?

Every year we hear of some new name, some new player in the sports news getting a new record contract which sets a much higher mark and blows away the high from the year before. So we ask who's fault is this that theses men and women are getting paid more and more? Most fingers point our way, the peoples way, the fans way. We are the ones that go to these sporting events pay $50 dollars for a ticket, pay a $100 dollars for a jacket, and $20 dollars for a cap of our favorite teams. We are the ones who support these teams and the players. The reason ticket prices keep going up is because money is needed to pay all of our great players.

It doesn't help that they know that we will pay these ticket prices no matter how ridiculous they start charging. There are thousands of more appropriate places for the money. Everyday people die of starvation because they just can't afford the amount of food they need to survive. Some schools get such little funding, it sometimes is very hard for the teachers to teach what they need to. The Twins have a very nice stadium, yet they threaten to leave unless we buy them a new four hundred million dollar stadium. Professional athletes don't deserve amounts such as, seventy million dollars over six years.

If this was a sane world, police officers, firefighters, and soldiers would earn the most money, but instead we decide to give most of our money to professional athletes. (Taylor, Suzi) Kirby Puckett was a great baseball player, but he still makes more money than anyone really needs. Finally, I believe anyone who has a large sum of money, could help the world out a great deal by giving to charitable organizations. The reasons are simple. These athletes have skills, amazing skills, that are incredibly rare.

They do things routinely that we can't do in our dreams. Look at Tiger Woods, Pete Sampras, Wayne Gretzky, Barry Sanders, and Mark McGuire. Instead of watching a Sunday afternoon National Basketball Association game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the New York Knicks, it's marketed as a clash featuring star players: Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant and Laurell Spr ewell. Professional Athletes are making too much money in a society that's salaries and wages are traditionally based on the values of ones work" (Jon Shepard-ESPN. com) Forbes magazine has reported that Michael Jordan made the most money of any athlete in a single year, $78.3 million, more than half of it in endorsements. Outfielder Bernie Williams of the Yankees and catcher Mike Piazza of the Mets each make about $90 million over seven years. Albert Belle, perhaps baseball's most misbehaved player, gets $65 million over five years to play for the Orioles.

(Forbes Magazine) Teams complain about the athletes making too much money, yet they keep handing out these salaries like coupons. All this takes place in a continuous battle of the survival of the fittest where only a handful of teams have been successful at winning. The high contracts have caused fans to suffer in the ticket lines. In most of the three top sports, the price of a ticket has increased over 60 percent in the last 20 years. A regular hot dog at Wrigley Field cost $2.50, and beverages, including bottled water, are just as high. When the owners hand out these contracts, the fans are forced to help pay in tickets concessions, parking fees, sports memorabilia.

(Nielsen, David) Professional athletes now demand that they be paid what they are "worth". Alex Rodriguez, now of the Texas Rangers and Mike Hampton, now of the Colorado Rockies, represent this case by Scott Bor as, sports agent, went to Major League Baseball general managers and told each of them that in order to have a legitimate chance of signing his client Rodriguez, the bidding would have to start at $200 million. Rodriguez went on to sign a 10-year, $252 million dollar contract with the Texas Rangers. In a sport where high salaries are becoming the "norm", Rodriguez said his high salary would help benefit the game because there will be more intrigue about him whenever he plays. (Jon Shepard-ESPN. com) Professional Athletes are constantly getting in trouble with the law. The players have all this money they are going to go out and spend it and have fun with it.

You can turn to the sports page and read about Rae Carrot a Wide Receiver for the Carolina Panthers in the NFL going to court for murdering his wife, Michael Irvin or Darryl Strawberry once again getting busted for possession of Cocaine and Marijuana or the crazed out lunatic Dennis Rodman kicking a cameraman in the groin. Whether it's Drug violation or Sexual Assault, it seems that the money is making these players behave badly. If we pay these players millions of dollars to entertain us, then it would be great if the could stay out of jail long enough so that the us the fans can see them play, but most of them end up getting out of prison and found not guilty of the crime because of who they are how much they are worth and how powerful they are. Professional athletes are getting paid millions for just games that are supposed to be fun I mean come on we all play and played them when we were kids and we enjoyed it for the fun of the game and the fun of the sport and the fun we had with the people we played them with. (Gary Horton-ESPN. com) In conclusion I feel that athletes make a sufficient amount of money for the work and dedication they put forth.

People would generally be happier if athletes showed appreciation for the money and give some back to the community or help with charitable organizations. Athletes get paid to entertain the people watching the sport. Most people who watch sports, only watch because they like it. If you like something that much will you go to extreme measures to see games at the stadium or in your livingroom?