Athletes and income inequality

[superrific]

Usually discussions of income inequality focus on hedge funds, executive pay, equity grants, etc. And obviously those things are really important.

But is it time to really and seriously include pro athletes in these discussions? The salaries are getting insane. In European football, it's even worse -- especially since the Saudis got involved. Reportedly the Saudis offered Vini Jr. $1B for two years. I mean, WTF? And F1 is a huge pot of money that goes to like a handful of people.

Golfers make obscene bank. Baseball players make $5M/yr *on average*. Meh NBA players are pulling in mid 8 figures per year.

What does this do to our perceptions of inequality and the politics of it?

 

[Willy]

It is odd. I think the answer is that people are generally ok with someone making $10MM/year to coach football, or $50MM per year to tour and release records, because they believe that money isn't generated unethically. But there is absolutely a disconnect and it will likely be addressed by society in the near future.

 

[Kraftyheel89]

Absolutely not. They would not be paid that much if the franchises did not make so much money from astronomical ticket prices, season ticket prices, ridiculous vendor costs, and the absurd amount of money companies pay for commercials and sponsorships.

The only advantages they have are natural ability amd hard work, and the biggest sports, putting their health at risk.

In fact, a large percentage come from disadvantaged homes in the two biggest sports (football and basketball).

So long as people are willing to pay more and more for tickets, and businesses for commercials, they earn it.

And don't even go down the path of WNBA salary inequality to NBA. Up until last year, nobody gave a crap about the WNBA. Hardly anybody went to games and not many more watched on TV. They lost money every year even with the small salaries, and the NBA has had to subsidize since the beginning.

 

[gtyellowjacket]

I think the folks that get really worried about athletes' salaries are the ones that can't tell the difference between millionaires and billionaires.

 

[superrific]

I think the folks that get really worried about athletes' salaries are the ones that can't tell the difference between millionaires and billionaires.

I think:
a) you suck at math; (this you've proven so frequently that I very much doubt you are actually employed in the field you claim)
b) income inequality is not actually only or even primarily about billionaires.

 

[Geisterfahrer]

Missing the forest for the trees imo. Athletes’ window to make bank is very narrow and in any event is driven by the owners/teams economic power and the insatiable public appetite for sports. Our priorities are absurd but how are the athletes in any way responsible? To get paid they have to achieve and maintain excellence. They’d be doing the exact same things if they were getting paid $500k instead of $10M.

 

[rodoheel]

Professional sports is a unique marketplace. Or more accurately a bunch of different unique marketplaces, because the way European soccer leagues work is remarkably different from the way professional sports leagues work. But in most of the American sports leagues, the total salaries paid to players are at some level intrinsically tied to the amount of money the businesses are making. In that way, at least, sports leagues are more friendly to labor than most marketplaces, even as they are restrained by things like drafts and salary caps that don't exist in other industries (and can only exist in the professional sports leagues thanks to collective bargaining agreements).

I think it is certainly true that athlete salaries can be something that causes ordinary Americans to roll their eyes and rail against the greedy entitled athletes who make more to play a single game than most people do in 4 or 5 years of work. But ultimately, the athlete salaries are not a problem themselves, they are simply a reflection of how much money the leagues make. I do think there may come a time when the public collectively gets fed up with the greed of the American professional sports leagues, which manifest themselves in higher ticket prices, higher prices for jerseys and other memorabilia, etc. And the players make the most obvious scapegoat for that because they're the ones whose salaries are constantly publicized and talk about. But of course they're the labor for the sports leagues, not the management, so that anger should be directed at the owners instead.

 

[mpaer]

The thing that "bothers me" about big time Professional sports is that the Players unions allow for obscence portions of Team payroll to go to 1 or 2 players Football is the worse as the avg career is like 3 years-but unless they are a first rounder they dont make money for shit until after the first contract Meanwhile Deshawn Watson is making 60 mill a year-and yea not playing

 

[Zoo_View]

Usually discussions of income inequality focus on hedge funds, executive pay, equity grants, etc. And obviously those things are really important.

But is it time to really and seriously include pro athletes in these discussions? The salaries are getting insane. In European football, it's even worse -- especially since the Saudis got involved. Reportedly the Saudis offered Vini Jr. $1B for two years. I mean, WTF? And F1 is a huge pot of money that goes to like a handful of people.

Golfers make obscene bank. Baseball players make $5M/yr *on average*. Meh NBA players are pulling in mid 8 figures per year.

What does this do to our perceptions of inequality and the politics of it?

The owners/teams can afford to pay such salaries.

I know little about European sports or F1 or NASCAR. When was the last time an English Premier League team or a European Champions League team or an F1 or NASCAR team went bankrupt?

When was the last time an MLB, NFL, or NBA team went bankrupt? Or even an NHL team? Has a WNBA team gone bankrupt? Ever?

The owners are loaded beyond belief.

I’m good with players getting a major cut.

Now, hopefully, we’ll soon see an end to local and state governments subsidizing sports franchises owned by multi-billionaires.

 

[Patb78]

Usually discussions of income inequality focus on hedge funds, executive pay, equity grants, etc. And obviously those things are really important.

But is it time to really and seriously include pro athletes in these discussions? The salaries are getting insane. In European football, it's even worse -- especially since the Saudis got involved. Reportedly the Saudis offered Vini Jr. $1B for two years. I mean, WTF? And F1 is a huge pot of money that goes to like a handful of people.

Golfers make obscene bank. Baseball players make $5M/yr *on average*. Meh NBA players are pulling in mid 8 figures per year.

What does this do to our perceptions of inequality and the politics of it?

I agree the numbers are obscene when you consider what these people do. But, we are a people who like to be entertained, and we are willing to pay for it. The three major team sports in this country bring in billions of dollars each year. The players deserve at least half of that. Due to the CBA’s in all three leagues the players do get slightly more than half. The same is true for singers and movie stars. Taylor Swift’s last tour took in hundreds of millions. Top movie stars get $20-30,000,000 per film. These people can make this kind of money because we are willing to pay them to entertain us.

 

[Bigs23]

Missing the forest for the trees imo. Athletes’ window to make bank is very narrow and in any event is driven by the owners/teams economic power and the insatiable public appetite for sports. Our priorities are absurd but how are the athletes in any way responsible? To get paid they have to achieve and maintain excellence. They’d be doing the exact same things if they were getting paid $500k instead of $10M.

The market sets the price.

 

[Scientific Mapp]

I thought this thread was gonna be about Cade Tyson making four times more than me despite never showing up for any game except Lasalle.

 

[heel79]

Top golfers are well paid. Compare salaries of 200th golfer with 200th best basketball player football baseball etc golfers don't get paid for performing well

 

[gtyellowjacket]

The thing that "bothers me" about big time Professional sports is that the Players unions allow for obscence portions of Team payroll to go to 1 or 2 players Football is the worse as the avg career is like 3 years-but unless they are a first rounder they dont make money for shit until after the first contract Meanwhile Deshawn Watson is making 60 mill a year-and yea not playing.

I get why young players don't get the contract. The Union's not fighting for them because they're not members of the Union yet and not voting on Union leadership. I agree that it's crazy they don't divvy that money up a little better. Alot more people voting at the bottom of the pyramid than the top.

 

[ColdBlueSteel]

The market sets the price.

 

[Zoo_View]

Top golfers are well paid. Compare salaries of 200th golfer with 200th best basketball player football baseball etc golfers don't get paid for performing well

1). Don’t golfers get paid for performing well? They don’t get paid for performing poorly. Miss the cut on the PGA Tour and you make nada.

2). Don’t millions more watch the NFL, NBA, and MLB than watch the PGA (or the Saudi Tour)?

 

[mpaer]

I get why young players don't get the contract. The Union's not fighting for them because they're not members of the Union yet and not voting on Union leadership. I agree that it's crazy they don't divvy that money up a little better. Alot more people voting at the bottom of the pyramid than the top.

Good points

 

[superrific]

Professional sports is a unique marketplace. Or more accurately a bunch of different unique marketplaces, because the way European soccer leagues work is remarkably different from the way professional sports leagues work. But in most of the American sports leagues, the total salaries paid to players are at some level intrinsically tied to the amount of money the businesses are making. In that way, at least, sports leagues are more friendly to labor than most marketplaces, even as they are restrained by things like drafts and salary caps that don't exist in other industries (and can only exist in the professional sports leagues thanks to collective bargaining agreements).

I think it is certainly true that athlete salaries can be something that causes ordinary Americans to roll their eyes and rail against the greedy entitled athletes who make more to play a single game than most people do in 4 or 5 years of work. But ultimately, the athlete salaries are not a problem themselves, they are simply a reflection of how much money the leagues make. I do think there may come a time when the public collectively gets fed up with the greed of the American professional sports leagues, which manifest themselves in higher ticket prices, higher prices for jerseys and other memorabilia, etc. And the players make the most obvious scapegoat for that because they're the ones whose salaries are constantly publicized and talk about. But of course they're the labor for the sports leagues, not the management, so that anger should be directed at the owners instead.

I don't care where the anger is directed. I'm just saying, athlete salaries have gotten so high that they are a considerable piece of the income inequality story. Owners already are part of that story, given that most of them were billionaires before buying (indeed that's how they bought).

I mean, when people say, "every billionaire is a policy failure" -- well, Lebron James and Tiger Woods are billionaires, and I'll bet Ohtani and Juan Soto cross that threshold in not too long. What does that do to the politics and the dynamic of the overall discussion?

 

[superrific]

Missing the forest for the trees imo. Athletes’ window to make bank is very narrow and in any event is driven by the owners/teams economic power and the insatiable public appetite for sports. Our priorities are absurd but how are the athletes in any way responsible? To get paid they have to achieve and maintain excellence. They’d be doing the exact same things if they were getting paid $500k instead of $10M.

I didn't say they were responsible. But this exact argument can apply to anything or anyone. We have an insatiable appetite for social media; hence Facebook being worth $500B and Zuck worth $80B or whatever the current numbers are.

If we are going to view income inequality as a policy issue worth discussing, then athlete salaries, I think, will have to be part of that story.

 

[Patb78]

I get why young players don't get the contract. The Union's not fighting for them because they're not members of the Union yet and not voting on Union leadership. I agree that it's crazy they don't divvy that money up a little better. Alot more people voting at the bottom of the pyramid than the top.

The main reason rookie salaries are less than veterans’ is based really on performance. Kids were coming out of college football and basketball demanding (and getting) more than the established veterans were making. The established players started to object. Also, quite a number of these big salaried rookies bombed and the team was stuck. Now each of the three leagues have set rookie salaries based on when the player was drafted. The salaries aren’t minimum wage, but they are significantly below what the established stars are making. After his rookie contract is over, if the player has indeed proven he can play at the professional level he will receive a lot larger contract. There is no limit on endorsement money.