I think my question was not stated clearly. Sorry. Regardless of the amounts of money, the right or wrong of it, the necessity, blah, blah, blah...
Who deserves to reap the profits of the business that is sports? I would say it is the talent with which the business doesn't exist without.
Some may say that an assembly line worker should reap the profits because automobiles couldn't be made without them. I agree, but there is a huge difference. An assembly line worker can be found just about anywhere or can be trained in a relatively short amount of time with limited expenditure of company resources. Try to find someone who can play basketball at Lebron's skill level, or try to train someone in 2 months to do what he does. This is why athletes make the money they do. This is why they deserve that money.
Economics 101: Supply and demand. There is an almost unlimited supply of most middle-class and entry-level type jobs (especially as long as there is no actual border between a wealthy country and a 3rd world country). There are 30 NBA teams, of which they can only have 12 active players (15 signed), so at most, you're paying 450 employees a great amount of money because of the skill it takes to attain that job. These guys make up .0001 percent of the U.S. population. The NBA is worth about $10 billion dollars, based on the average team value of around $325 million. At a $14 Trillion dollar GDP, the NBA makes up .07 percent of the entire U.S. GDP. That's 450 guys that are creating nearly 1% of our country's GDP. Of course there are other people involved that help create that number from the team owner to the concession stand worker, but without those 450 guys playing professionally, those jobs wouldn't exist and our economy would be that much smaller.
Its about perspective. You do not create the jobs or provide as much for our country. I will never complain about the money somebody else makes and compare it to my own. If I'm not happy with the amount I make, perhaps I should consider the contribution I'm making to the nation. I am not the best at anything that has an available workforce of only 450 people, so I will never compare myself to Lebron James.
This does not apply to soldiers, who give everything they have for comparatively little in return.
Who deserves to reap the profits of the business that is sports? I would say it is the talent with which the business doesn't exist without.
Some may say that an assembly line worker should reap the profits because automobiles couldn't be made without them. I agree, but there is a huge difference. An assembly line worker can be found just about anywhere or can be trained in a relatively short amount of time with limited expenditure of company resources. Try to find someone who can play basketball at Lebron's skill level, or try to train someone in 2 months to do what he does. This is why athletes make the money they do. This is why they deserve that money.
Economics 101: Supply and demand. There is an almost unlimited supply of most middle-class and entry-level type jobs (especially as long as there is no actual border between a wealthy country and a 3rd world country). There are 30 NBA teams, of which they can only have 12 active players (15 signed), so at most, you're paying 450 employees a great amount of money because of the skill it takes to attain that job. These guys make up .0001 percent of the U.S. population. The NBA is worth about $10 billion dollars, based on the average team value of around $325 million. At a $14 Trillion dollar GDP, the NBA makes up .07 percent of the entire U.S. GDP. That's 450 guys that are creating nearly 1% of our country's GDP. Of course there are other people involved that help create that number from the team owner to the concession stand worker, but without those 450 guys playing professionally, those jobs wouldn't exist and our economy would be that much smaller.
Its about perspective. You do not create the jobs or provide as much for our country. I will never complain about the money somebody else makes and compare it to my own. If I'm not happy with the amount I make, perhaps I should consider the contribution I'm making to the nation. I am not the best at anything that has an available workforce of only 450 people, so I will never compare myself to Lebron James.
This does not apply to soldiers, who give everything they have for comparatively little in return.
