Salaries in Professional Sports

Salaries in Professional Sports

Back in 1965 if you were playing professional baseball for the richest team in the league you would be earning approximately 35 000$ a year, being the case you're a standout type player, a "franchise player" as there also referred to. Thirty-five years later, if you were to hand 35 000$ to a super star, they would turn and laugh. For in today's game, 35 000$ would not even come close to covering the signing bonus. Somehow over the last thirty-five years or so professional sports has turned from a loveable pastime into a greedy business. The majority of players play no longer for the love of the game; they play only to fatten their wallets. Players in professional sports have somehow lost what brought them to play the game that they loved so much as little children, passion! Players in today's modern era have traded their passion for glory.

Back in the early day of pro sports players would work hard day in day out just to earn enough to support there family, and even then, many athletes had to work outside of there sport just to earn enough money. So you knew that those man played not for the glory nor for the money but for the love of the game. But today, well sadly you really have to wonder sometimes. Can you really say that a man who would turn down 150 million to play pro ball just because he feels he can make 200 million is playing for the right reasons?

So now your really only left with one question, what can we do about it? Well you know what, as bad as it is, the problem could be fixed in the blink of an eye. The reason the problem is so simple to fix is because players, even though they might think they do, have absolutely no control what so ever. All the power lies in the hands of the owners. If the owners would decide enough is enough, you would never ever hear about an athlete signing a contract worth 250 million dollars again. You see what truthfully separates the men from the boys in pro sports teams, is talent, and the team with the most talent will win. And the only way to get talent is by handing over the big dollars to the most talented players. That's why teams like the New York Yankees, and the Detroit Red Wings, and the Los Angeles Lackers rise above the rest, there owners are willing to hand out more of the big bucks to players in order to assure a winning team. Now obviously there are other