Do Professional Athletes Really Deserve all that Money?

Could you imagine giving up your entire life to pursue a sport? Professional athletes are receiving a lot of backlash for being overcompensated by leagues to play games. Some companies pay professional athletes up to $2.6-$8.3 million a year, while an emergency room nurse makes about 100,000; that is at LEAST twenty five times more. While many people believe these athletes are overpaid, many people also believe they deserve every bit of this money. Making it to the pros takes many years of hard work, and the slight amount of athletes who get that far have only five to ten years to earn a living, compared to forty or fifty years for other jobs. Professional athletes deserve this great deal of money because they give their whole lives to the sport they play, sacrificing time and relationships to play well, and providing encouragement for those who look up to players. 

Professional athletes give up time with loved ones, and one injury can easily change their way of life. According to Elad de Piccioto, author at The Perspective, “Players put their bodies in danger daily. Physical injury can leave professional athletes handicapped or disabled for the rest of their lives; NFL players who experience multiple concussions can suffer from progressive degenerative disease that causes dementia and depression” (Picciotto). Furthermore, athletes don’t just put themselves at risk for life changing injuries, their mental health can also be affected tremendously. Another statement brought up by Piccioto, “Professional athletes sacrifice important aspects of their lives, especially their health and family. For instance, during each season of any professional sport, there are away games that keep players from their families'' (Picciotto). Physical injury is not the only issue athletes face, mental health is also a big part of playing a professional sport. All that time away from loved ones, and missing important events can have a huge impact on a players mental mindset. Ultimately, professional athletes sacrifice their health, mental and physical, and sacrifice so much time and miss so many important life landmarks in order to pursue the sport they play. 

Athletes are a huge part of the economy, and bring in most of the money they make. Fred Brown, Washington post sportswriter and author writes “A large percentage of these revenues come from ticket sales and merchandise, which is made available by the players” (Brown).  In other words, a player's salary is mostly made up of money they bring in by providing entertainment for people to come see. Another remark stated by Washington post sportswriter and author Fred Brown, “It's important to remember that those athletes are an essential part of enormously profitable companies. Without the players, the leagues wouldn’t exist. Players’ salaries are simply their share of all the cash these hugely successful businesses bring in” (Brown). What this tells us is that athletes are the reason that this type of entertainment industry exists, and their salaries represent the money THEY bring in for these companies. Overall, professional athletes are receiving the money that they produce through their sport. Therefore, they are keeping many industries and leagues alive by committing to play. 

Although many believe that professional athletes deserve this money, almost the same amount of people believe that athletes make way too much money and should be paid less. Author Adam Aladad states that “Teachers, who educate the future, make pennies compared to what athletes make. In addition, police officers, firefighters, and doctors constantly  save lives, while troops in the army are forced to leave their families. Meanwhile, none of these professions receive the same recognition that professional athletes do” (Aldad). This information tells us that athletes do nothing to help our world, and provide nothing but entertainment There are workers out there saving lives, helping people in need, and changing our world, yet they are still not as appreciated as the entertainment that athletes provide. However, there are many logical reasons that our economy provides this large gap in salaries. Michael Walden, a writer for the Charlotte observer, gives us our answer. “In this setting, the determination of salaries is rather simple. Salaries will be set by the interaction of the demand for workers in a particular job and the supply of workers able to do that job. Jobs for which there is a high demand but there is a low supply will pay the most, jobs with a low demand and high supply will pay the least, and the pay of other jobs will be in the middle” (Walden). Now with this information, we know that athletes are paid so greatly because there is such a high demand for professional sports,  and if these athletes are good they get lots of people bringing in the money. While the demand for these sporting events is so immense, the demand for doctors and firefighters is lessened because there are so many workers in these professions compared to professional athletes. 

To conclude, athletes are a huge part of our economy and deserve to be paid so high for all of the sacrifice and hard work they go through. Paying these hard working athletes so much makes sense, they give up their normal lives to pursue a life of being constantly attentive to what they do. Some athletes give up being able to go out to eat or to the store without being swarmed by fans. Although athletes are not out saving lives like firefighters and doctors, they do still provide a lot for people. In the end, professional athletes aren’t just entertainers, during times like this they can provide an escape or distraction from our boring daily lives. These athletes can be an inspiration to some and should be acknowledged for what they do.