Are Athletes Overpaid?

The highest paid player in American sports history, is Texas Rangers short stop Alex Rodriguez (Eichorn, 1). Alex signed a contract for 252 million dollars over ten years with the Rangers, or 22 million each year for ten years [(Weiss, 3)(Eichorn, 1)]. But some don’t fathom how much 22 million dollars a year is. You’d have to win a million dollars on “Who wants to be a Millionaire” 22 times. If you had a $50,000 salary, you’d have to wait about 5,000 years to make what Alex makes in a year. You could also get lucky with the lottery (Eichorn, 2). The owners paid more for Rodriguez, than they paid for the whole ball club. Paying players that kind of money not only costs owners though, it cost fans, for ticket prices and food and drinks at the baseball field (Eichorn, 5)

Athletes don’t really have a reason for making millions of dollars. Some don’t know basics,

But what are athletes doing other than entertaining us for a few hours in a day? Are they saving lives? Curing diseases? Are they giving aid to war-torn countries? No they are playing simple little games. The average firefighter or cop makes $30-$40,000 a year, maybe less. They save lives and risk their lives everyday. Doctors and scientists make good money but they are working to help people and still make less than some athletes. Athletes certainly don’t deserve millions of dollars for just playing a game (Eichorn 5).

Some athletes and spokesmen for athletes and professional sports argue that athletes are entertainers and deserve just as much money as an actor or an actress. Acting and sports have been forms of entertainment for very long periods of time but are two very different things. Acting has mainly been defined as an art and sports defined as just a game. Performers just aren’t worth $10,000 dollars for maybe 3 hours in a day, its game (Hoffman, Greenberg, 3&8).

Usually players get paid to join a team to help in the ultimate goal of winning a championship. Sometime players don’t help their team win though, for instance the Rangers haven’t been to the playoffs at all since the signed Alex Rodriguez. And since players get paid huge multi-million dollar contracts, that could put some added pressure to them and they might not perform as expected. This might make teammates who are performing at a higher-level get angry and want justification by getting more money. It’s understandable, but pretty

Some topics in this essay:
Rodriguez Eichorn, Jose Canseco, Peyton Manning, Hoffman Greenberg, Sports Illustrated, Alex Rodriguez, , Texas Rangers, millions dollars, Indianapolis Colts, hoffman greenberg, game money, team owners pay, owners pay, team owners, players paid, alex rodriguez, athletes don’t, don’t care, professional athlete,