Are sportsmen overpaid?

[mrjack41]

Very simple question, doing a presentation on this subject next week in my english class, wanted to know your opinions.

According to Forbes the highest income of any sportsperson in the last twelve months was Floyd Mayweather Jr at $85,000,000. Ridicolous or not?

 

[bornexplorer88]

It's considered the highest form of entertainment in society today and therefore it would seem that they merit their pricetag...

If you look at how much they actually earn for the community (playing their event in the city, eg. Ricky Hatton fights Mayweather and brought thousands of fans to the match and the city spending money in that community, tourism; its the same for events like the Champions League Final, Euro 2012, World Cup, Olympics, The Ryder Cup, all of which offer the winner massive amounts of money, due to the amount of money the respective participants bring with them)

Hope this helps... I'm sure theirs more opinions, I'd have alook at using Yahoo Answers.

 

[Joel`]

This thread again...

They're paid by the free market, the people who pay them are free to spend however much they like on players wages, since they're willing to pay it, they cannot be overpaid, by definition. And to get it out of the way before the argument comes up, no you cannot pay for 50 more nurses a week if we paid Rooney less, you can't take money from a club to pay for nurses, it's a stupid argument. If the money doesn't go to footballers, where does it go? Sits in the owners' bank account, untaxed, unspent, out of the economy. Without doing the tax calculation, Rooney's wage probably employs about 1.5 nurses per week in tax (let's not get into tax avoidance.)

Football is the most in demand sport in the world, a multi-billion pound industry, I fail to see why people don't expect the players who are the major attractions in that industry to be highly paid. Is Bill Gates, the major player in one of the biggest markets in the world overpaid?

 

[Montanaro]

Commie talk

 

[GodCubed]

I'MMA FIRIN' MY ECONOMIX CANNO- oh no wait Joel's got there before me.

 

[Tyton]

Its a free world. Although i gotta say it did get out of hand quite a bit last few years. Hopefully national FAs in their respective countries will step in and impose some regulations to make at least some ofthat money go into youth and infrastructure.

I don't really care whether players make 5 milion or 10 milion a year, but i'd hate to see some legendary clubs collapse themselves due to uncontrolled spending.

 

[Redrup]

'Are they overpaid?' is a bit of a broad question and I can't be bothered to type out an essay as to why they're not (Not to mention Joel has already covered the basics), but asked the revised question of 'Does what they do make them deserve the money they receive'? then I would certainly say no.

But if I was a Footballer, I wouldn't turn it down.

 

[Aannddyy]

I'd just like to point out that Wayne Rooney's wages does pay for nurses.. 50% of his earnings is taken by the tax-man. The less footballers are paid, the more money stays in the banks of the even richer businessmen, the less money the government earn it tax, the less nurses are employed.

But of course, do they really "earn" their wage compared to other jobs? Obviously not, but that's life.

 

[Shockhorror.]

I'd just like to point out that Wayne Rooney's wages does pay for nurses.. 50% of his earnings is taken by the tax-man. The less footballers are paid, the more money stays in the banks of the even richer businessmen, the less money the government earn it tax, the less nurses are employed.

But of course, do they really "earn" their wage compared to other jobs? Obviously not, but that's life.

Or at least, that's what's supposed to happen.

 

[Shockhorror.]

If the teams paying them can actually afford their wages, no. But as we've seen with many sports (NHL lockout, NBA lockout), teams are paying their players far too much to the point where the entire leagues future is put in doubt. So in those cases, yeah they are overpaid.