preview

Importance Of Athletes Deserve To Be Paid

Decent Essays

What is the difference between a professional soccer player and a Surgeon? One of these two people save lives for a living and makes a little over $500,000 a year (Smith, Forbes), the other makes millions of dollars more for kicking a ball into the back of a net. It’s not difficult to guess which is which. The hard part is making the realization that this is not only an injustice but an incredible problem. There is no question about it, athletes are paid much more than they should be. The fact that they take home millions of dollars more than the real heroes of society, like teachers or doctors, is a pure injustice. They also get paid ridiculous amounts in comparison to their fellow entertainers. If all of that wasn’t enough, this issue of …show more content…

Although this may be true, athletes are not the only professionals who risk their health and safety. Law enforcement officers put their lives on the line every day they go to work. At the same time, they don’t demand millions of dollars every year to carry out their jobs properly. Keep in mind, their job is to maintain the safety of the people, not play a competitive sport. This does not mean that athletes are not playing an important role in society, because they certainly are. This just means that it is improper for them to be held in higher esteem than people who risk their lives every day to ensure the protection of …show more content…

There are many other professions that carry out the same job, just in different ways. This category includes comedians, actors and musicians to name a few. All of these professions still earn substantially less than athletes. Let’s do the math. On average, a mid-level actor would earn $52,000 a year (The Hollywood Reporter, 2014). Comedians could make $30,000 or more annually (The Art Career Project, 2014). An organist or pianist can earn up to $110,000 in a year (Berklee College of Music, 2012). If you combine their yearly wages, they add up to $192,000. This should be an impressive figure, right? Only if you don’t consider the fact that the average Major League Baseball player’s salary is over $4 million (Burg, USA Today). That means one person can make over twenty times more than three other professionals combined. It doesn’t get any more ridiculous than that. It’s impossible to stress enough how unnecessarily overpaid athletes are. When you consider what little importance athletes have in society compared to professionals that make less than them, the ridiculous financial advantage they have over their fellow entertainers and what a threat this greed is to the future of sports, it’s difficult not to be alarmed. It’s up to us as members of this society to make this right. Obviously, this issue cannot be dealt with overnight and it may never be fully dissolved. But that does not mean we shouldn’t make an effort

Get Access