Here’s some food for thought.
Sport Illustrated recently reported the average salary of eleven different positions in professional football. Quarterbacks made the most, with an average salary of $1,970,982, while tight ends and punters made the least at an average of $863,414 and $868,005 respectively.
Overall, the calculated average salary of a professional football player came out to approximately $1,191,513. Major League Baseball was able to top this number, though, with the Major League Baseball Player’s Association website reporting that the average salary for a major leaguer in 2009 was $2,996,106.
These numbers serve to give rise to a question that has been asked in one form or another for many years: do professional athletes (and celebrities for that matter) make too much money?
A poll conducted on the website Helium reported that 2,331 of the 3,721 responses, or approximately two thirds, voted “yes.” Looking through the impassioned articles arguing in favor of this stance, a number of notable points seem to be held in common throughout.
A number of proponents to this position noted that these individuals oftentimes served as role models for the posterity of America, yet they frequently offered examples of such behavior like intoxicated driving, domestic violence, drug abuse, and use of illicit performance enhancing drugs.
Others furthered the idea that they did little, yet received such enormous compensation in comparison. In addition, an individual does not realistically need millions of dollar in order to live within reasonable comforts.
Many have argued that the salary of individuals such as doctors, teachers, firefighters, and police officers, pale in comparison to that of professional athletes and celebrities. The fact that these public servants are more often than not overworked and underpaid while these individuals are arguably under-worked and overpaid faces immense criticism and controversy.
Additionally, some people have pointed out that many of the aforementioned individuals do not contribute anything meaningful to society. Rather, they stand to represent a loss through their well-publicized illicit activities (the cast of Jersey Shore signed a contract in which their current salary of $10,000 per episode increased to $30,000 per episode in 24 episodes of the third season).
Yet, in many ways, the character of these individuals holds little relevance as to whether they “deserve” the salary that they receive. In the end, that astronomical number merely reflects the market value of the services they provide.
Who, then, is the source of the demand?
Inevitably, the finger of blame is eventually directed to the consumer. The consumer who avidly follows every sport offered on television and never misses an episode. The consumer who buys the overpriced merchandise bearing the logo of their favorite sports teams and buys the products endorsed by various teams and players. The consumer ultimately feeds the perpetuation of the vicious cycle.
With this, it follows that these institutions would eventually starve to death without the consumer. For the strong proponents who denounce this particular inequity, they should consider directly addressing their fellow citizens and actively seeking out a social reform. Doing so would focus the energies for change at the root of this “inequality.”
In the end, the people who receive these grossly disproportionate salaries get what they get, like the vast majority of people. Beyond whether this is right or wrong, it can be more basely seen as something that just is.
For the people may persist in arguing that “it’s not fair,” I would refer them to Charles J. Sykes who can happily notify them exactly how he feels about fairness.
