A second-year All-Star can be paid just above minimum salary. With ticket pricesgradually rising, not to mention merchandise price tags, sports fans might feel resentful toward funding overpaid athletes. In 2018, the average annual salary for an M.L.B. In fact, some pro athletes in minor league baseballdont even make minimum wage. The American League and now the National League both use designated hitters. An NHL Blackhawks player earned over 124 million dollars in 13 years.Why should athletes get paid so much to play a game? While I do understand that making it into the pros is not an easy thing to do, and thatit takes a tremendous number of hours of hard work and dedication every day to earn a job in professional sports, these people do nothing more than entertain the general public. Sports betting is now legal in the majority of US states. Fox Sports say the pool-play game versus Chile had record viewership for a Women's World Cup group-stagematch. Additionally, while most teenagers or college-age students spend their free time studying, working or hanging out, student athletes aiming to qualify for the pros spend all of their free time training. The most marketable tennis players made four times as much from endorsements and appearance fees as they did from prize money over the last year. player was $4.1million. In team sports, though, the picture for women is bleak. By submitting this form, you consent to receive emails and calls from a representative of Adelphi University, which may include the use of automated technology. This cycle goes as follows: the fewer women who have access to sports, the fewer women have interest in sports, the fewer women who will become professional athletes, the fewer fans, the fewer commercial opportunities for revenue, the less interest in ad buys and investment in women's sport, the less money there is for female athlete salaries, These infamous players must grow up, and prove to America that they can be positive role models for kids on and off the field. Furthermore, police officers, firefighters, and doctors save lives while risking their own for a fraction of what sports stars make. The National Basketball Association (N.B.A. Given athletes large salaries, more youngsters want to become professional athletes but for the big money, not for the love of the game. Professional athletes are making too much money in a society where salaries and wages are traditionally based on the value of one's work. A handful of big sports. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the top two college football positionsthe quarterback and wide receiverwere worth $2.4 million and $1.3 million per year respectively, while starting mens basketball players in the Power Five schools were worth between $800,000 and $1.2 million per year. 3. And, as John I. Jenkins and Jack Swarbrick, President and Athletics Director of Notre Dame University argue, We have been vocal in our conviction that student-athletes should be allowed to profit from their celebrity for one simple reason: Other students are allowed to. College athletes may also play a second sport professionally and be compensated, such as Clemson quarterback Kyle Parker who earned a $1.4 million baseball signing bonus from the Colorado Rockies in 2010 while still playing football for the Tigers. Analyze the argument that paying athletes would ruin college sports from Cody J. McDavis, former college basketball player. Major League Soccer played their first game in 1996, after the United States hosted the 1994 FIFA World Cup. While these may seem huge, so are the deductions from them. This pay gap creates unnecessary tensions within sport teams and is unfair to teammates who sacrifice just as much but for less money. Pro. The result is an explosion in player salaries in the major men's sports leagues. Our signature Pro/Con articles on various big debates. Until 2018, the mens team qualified for the World Cup every year since 1990, but has not won a championship. Of the 36,011 college baseball players, only 8,002 are eligible to play professionally each year. They make their teammates better, thereby improving the whole team (thinkTom Brady Kevin Durant, and, of course,Michael Jordan, etc.). FRED BOWEN Washington Post sportswriter and author What are sports like at your school? Lower salaries wouldnt necessarily lead to lower ticket and hot dog prices for fans who go to the games. In 2016, ESPN doubled their rights fee to show WNBA games, paying $25 million a year. One of the main reasons the league may just get away with that is that it's the off-season right now, meaning franchises aren't missing out on lucrative games. 3 Reasons Why Professional Athletes Shouldn't Be Paid So Much . But, with all this growth, are mens and womens earnings in line? 3. 1, 2021), Dan Murphy and Adam Rittenberg, NCAA Delays Vote to Change College Athlete Compensation Rules, espn.com, Jan. 11, 2021, Sarah Polus, NCAA Tables Name, Image and Likeness Vote after DOJ Warns of Potential Antitrust Violations, thehill.com, Jan. 12, 2021, Adam Liptak, Supreme Court to Rule on N.C.A.A. 1. Football and basketball players cannot play professionally immediately after high school. Up until 2020, the WNBA received 20% of their leagues revenues. The top WNBA salarywas $117,500 last season, compared with $37.4 million in the NBA. This is about a six-foot-nine superstar taking a red-eye cross-country and having to sit in an economy seat instead of an exit row. The current deal with the league ends in October. What kids learn from successful ballplayers like him is that Its okay for me to use illegal substances, because in the long run, it will pay off by earning me an enormous contract.. As women and girls continue to fight for equal opportunity in the workplace, the fields, arenas and courts have been, and will continue to be, no exception. While the highest paid athletes draw more attention, the truth is thatmost athletes are fairly paid. Next, some MLB players will earn more in one game than the average American household makes in 10 years. What message do you think U.S. Soccer is sending with this agreement, which Mr. Das writes is a tacit admission that compensation for the mens and womens teams had been unequal for years? These players are apart from their families and have to stay in hotels and eat out at many places. That adds up to about $400,000 a year. The National Football League, Major League Baseball, and the National Basketball Association generate billions of dollars in revenue. We'll have to wait and see what. No Division II or III schools revenue exceeded expenses. Access this article and hundreds more like it with a subscription to The New York TImes Upfrontmagazine. The case is a bit murkier for the U.S. womens national soccer team, which is on the prowl for a second straight World Cup title and faces Spain tomorrow after sweeping its three pool-play matches. Firefighters are the next contributor to society. In other words, it would be more prudent and more profitable for college athletes to focus on education as their compensation. Wouldn't it be great to make nearly $111 million a year simply to play a game? Are there other factors that you think should be taken into account? For example, players in the National Womens Soccer League make only between $16,000 and $44,000 a season. are the three biggest sports organizations in the U.S. Soccer is the most popular sport everywhere but in the US. while increasing income inequalitybetween the majority of athletes. You can find all of our questions in our Student Opinion column. 1,217 will be draft picks, but only 791 will be drafted yearly, meaning about 9.9% of college baseball players will go pro, which is the largest likelihood in NCAA sports. Consent is needed to contact you, but is not a requirement to register or enroll. Only a tiny fraction actually make it to the big time. Adding insult to sometimes literal injury, college athletes are also frequently denied the NCAAs other form of compensation: a quality education. Rent-Sharing in Modern College Sports, nber.org, Oct. 2020, Tommy Beer, NCAA Athletes Could Make $2 Million A Year If Paid Equitably, Study Suggests, forbes.com, Sep. 1, 2020, NCPA, Study: "The Price of Poverty in Big Time College Sport" - 9/13/2011, ncpanow.org, Sep. 13, 2011, Mary Kate McCoy, Survey: Nearly a Quarter of Division I Athletes Face Food Insecurity, wpr.org, May 6, 2020, NCAA, Scholarships, ncaa.org (accessed Mar. Things improve when men and . However, the past decade has seen some attempts to narrow that gap. [28]. Should Brady be called the best quarterback in NFL history? Scores of college athletes are being used to generate money for NCAA sports in a pandemic without the NCAA enforcing any COVID standards. [17], The NCAA reported over $1.06 billion in revenue in 2017 (the most recent available numbers). In today's society, one should be paid according to. So if you think pro athletes make too much money, maybe you should stop watching them. This quote suggests the importance of teachers in our society, rendering the fact they should be paid more than professional athletes. ], ProCon.org, "Paying College Athletes Top 3 Pros and Cons,", ProCon.org, "Paying College Athletes Top 3 Pros and Cons. Another sign of growth toward pay equality is that tennis players from both the ATP and WTA have come together to campaign for a larger share of tournament revenues. But now in the 21st century, the NCAA is a billion dollar company. Managing Editor Whether professional players receive salaries or individual prize money from competitions, male athletes in basketball, golf, soccer, baseball and tennis make anywhere from 15% to nearly 100% more than female athletes. The U.S. womens soccer teams games havegenerated more revenuethan the mens team over the past three years, according to a review by theWall Street Journal. But one of the biggest moves was the WNBAs 2020 community bargaining agreement. 3. [47], By Jan. 2022, without a clear NIL structure from the NCAA, some schools were questioning how to navigate deals for players or whole teams without violating NCAA policy. This trend holds a significant effect on players salaries: It helps some athletes get oversized contracts (what doPatrick Mahomes teammates think about his $503M contract?) Both are undoubted NBA legends, but which of the two has been a bigger winner? Midfielder Lindsey Horan celebrates with forward, Megan Rapinoe after scoring a goal during the 2019 Women's World Cup on June 20, 2019. It Threatens the Future of Sports. Aspiring athletes get to be superstars because they have some type of rare talent. We would pay athletes because when President Theodore Roosevelt helped create the NCAA in 1906, he had no idea what it would grow into. What Should Be Done About the Gender Pay Gap in Sports? players had reached out to the American soccer players and their union for help as they sought better pay and working conditions. The rising gap between the average Americans income and a professional athletes income might pose a serious threat to sports. [35] Further, a Gallup poll of 74,385 U.S. adults with a bachelors degree, finds that college graduates who participated in NCAA athletics experience a host of positive long-term life outcomes at greater rates than non-athletes. [36], Those positive outcomes include: 70% of NCAA athletes graduated in four years or fewer, 50% agree that college was worth the cost, 39% earned an advanced degree, 33% have good jobs after graduation, and 24% However, its not the athletes fault that their wages are so high. Professional athletes put in years ofhard workand deserve every penny they earn. The NCAA is seemingly the final authority to decide whether college athletes should be paid to play college sports. Want more writing prompts? In today's society, one should be paid according to the jobs economic importance and their value to society. But as recent lawsuits and even Twitter battles show, we still have a ways to go. When basketball player Stephen Curry signed a new contract with the Golden State Warriors in 2017,jaws dropped at his salary: a whopping $201million over five years. The ruling changed the broadcast regulations for college football. How do you think stakeholders, such as fans, sponsors, tournament organizers, politicians and athletes, should engage with the fight for equal pay in womens sports, if at all? The gender pay gap is still a big problem. The players long battle with U.S. Soccer, which is not only their employer but also the sports national governing body, had thrust them to the forefront of a broader fight for equality in womens sports and drawn the support of fellow athletes, celebrities, politicians and presidential candidates. Compare those wages withthe national average salary fora firefighter: about $45,000 a year. They also have the celebrity effect, which draws more paying fans in. However, in 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Fair Play Act that allows college athletes to hire agents, sign endorsement deals, and be paid for the use of their likeness. UNC athletes will be able to earn money for NIL marketing including UNC trademarks and logos in groups of three or more athletes. 2018: Twenty-eight USWNT players joined a wage-discrimiation class-action suit against U.S. Soccer. ProCon/Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. 2. The WNBA did recently add a multi-year partnership with CBS Sports Network to air 40 games next season, and the new pact is in addition to the leagues existing deal with ESPN. The WNBA generates roughly $25 million. While both mens and womens soccer players are seeing salary increases alongside the sports rise in popularity, men still far outearn women. In the 1997-98 season, NBA rookies made 176% more than WNBA rookies. Besides, not all athletes make millions of dollars. As of June 10, 2021, 18 states have passed NIL laws; five more states have passed bills that were awaiting the governors signature to become law; 14 states have introduced NIL bills; and one state has a bill passed by the Senate and awaiting a House vote, according to the Business of College Sports. Erin McGeoy, a former water polo athlete at George Washington University, explained, a common occurrence was that we would run out of meal money halfway through the semester and thats when I started to run into troubles of food insecurity. She turned to boarding dogs in her no-dogs-allowed apartment in order to pay rent because housing costs increased each year but her housing allowance remained static. When the WNBA players' union opted out of its collective bargaining agreement in November, Los Angeles Sparks star Nneka Ogwumike, the president of the union, wrote for The Players' Tribune: This is not purely about salaries. If so, theyll stop paying to watch or support professional sports teams, leaving the industry in the lurch. That changed with a new community bargaining agreement, reached in January of 2020, which agreed to a 50-50 split and brought WNBA players in line with their male counterparts. This month . The pay disparities in baseball/softball and basketball come down almost entirely to the revenue their leagues generate. ), the National Football League (N.F.L. [16], In 2021, the National College Players Association (NCPA) Executive Director Ramogi Huma stated, [m]any of these athletes are Black and from low-income homes the NCAA treats them like disposable university property. Managers, owners and other administrators can have direct input in how much players get paid. As John Thelin, PhD, Research Professor of History of Higher Education & Public Policy at the University of Kentucky, explained, paying salaries to players will increase [athletic] program expenditures without necessarily increasing revenues [and] a handful of powerful programs will stand to gain in competition for athletic talent simply because they can afford to pay salaries. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Thats about $40million a yearone of the highest annual salaries in team sports. Are pro athletes overpaid? Also, think about whod get the money if the athletes made less. Considering athletes spend time commuting to training and competition, female athletes are at 200 per cent greater risk of injuring their neck if even a minor car accident happens. In U.S. When asking people whether they think athletes are paid way too much money, most agree with me. Is MMA any more dangerous than boxing or other contact sports? After reading the pros and cons on this topic, has your thinking changed? 23, 2023. The average American will retire between the ages of 65-75, but a professional athlete will last a lot less in their career than someone who sits at a desk all day.
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