KAKA AND £500,000-A-WEEK WAGES
Reports are ubiquitous that a Manchester City delegation made a bid in excess of £100m for the AC Milan’s 26-year-old Brazilian Superstar Kaka. It is reported that if the bid is successful Kaka will be getting £500,000-a-week wages. That brings up the question: is £500,000-a-week wages too much for an athlete?
A common sentiment of the typical sports fan is that athletes are overpaid. That is to say, athletes are paid more than their relative “worth”— as opposed to teachers, lawyers, doctors, etc. Now the question is: Who is supposed to ascribe worth, owners of the teams or the fans? True, higher fan attendance means higher revenue which means more worth, but fans are not the people who write the checks. This responsibility falls on the owners of these professional teams/clubs.
Clubs create significant revenue from the fans that pay to see these highly skilled athletes. Naturally, an athlete’s worth should not be examined based on intrinsic value, but rather monetary value. Whatever the case may be, most economists agree that the common man’s animosity towards athletes’ salaries most likely stems from jealousy and envy rather than economic theory.
Professional sports are a business. We must not judge athletes based on their intrinsic value to a society; rather, we must judge them as products that create revenue. When the product happens to be a human, such as is the case with athletes, that human must be compensated. What is the right compensation? It depends on how much money the athlete creates or is expected to create. A business owner has to decide how much to pay an employee, based on what the employee brings or will bring to the table. Sports Stars are money making machines that’s why they are highly paid. Owners of teams make huge profits off of Sports Stars. In professional sports if a team is in a seemingly unproductive market and then signs a superstar athlete at a high price the team starts to make money because of the financial pull of that athlete. Sports Stars = Greater fan attendance. Due to the basic laws of supply and demand, the more we demand, the higher the price. The players that generate the most revenue are wanted by everyone, therefore if you aren’t willing to pay a higher price, someone else will. Also, if you have stars in your team ticket prices tend to be higher. The higher the price, the more profit team owners make. Now that takes us to another question: What are the owners supposed to do with their huge profits? Why should they underpay the “employees” that generate those profits? When you think about all of the money the Sports Stars help generate through commercials, sportswear, tickets, endorsements, the question then becomes: if not the athletes, who should get this money?
The best software programmers, best lawyers, etc make outrageous amounts of money, so why should athletes be any different?
Yes, athletes make a lot of money but they are less conservative with their money. They buy those expensive houses, cars, “bling-bling”, etc. possibly made by the company you work for. Also, a big chunk of their wages goes to the Government (tax). What does Government do with tax money? As much money as they (sports stars) make, they also put a huge amount of that back into the economy. They stimulate the economy. The athletes’ salary is a little drop in the overflowing bucket of money that professional sports slosh around. In the end, it all evens out.
“We (athletes) might make a lot of money but, we also spend a lot of money” – Patrick Ewing
Related Posts
Subscribe
|
Print
|
Share
|
Comments


Kaka To City Inching Closer and Closer
http://www.theoffside.com/world-football/kaka-to-city-inching-closer-and-closer.html#comments
Posted from
United States




What would kaka do with money like this. A strictly charity focused player as he is, with his strong religious views, may very well …how do we say give it all a way. good causes win here and he gets to play in newcastle on a wet night in winter with a shower of gob shite players dipping in and out of relegation and not smelling the money…their manager is like slum dog millionaire fighting….do they really have 9 billion of a transfer budget. !
Posted from
Ireland


Comments are closed
Send Your Tips!
Email tips[at]worldcupblog[dot]org
Malawi Club Football News
- Would You Rather: Club Win the League? Or Country Win the World Cup?
- Daily Dose: October 11th, 2009.
- The Atlantic League: A European Not-Quite-Super-But Still-Quite-Good-League for Celtic, Rangers and Others
- Is Watching Football on the Internet The Future?
- The FFT100 - Agree? Disagree?
More Africa Blogs
Angola World Cup Team Blog
268 Articles | 779 Comments
Ghana World Cup Team Blog
215 Articles | 505 Comments
Togo World Cup Team Blog
163 Articles | 179 Comments
Tunisia World Cup Team Blog
402 Articles | 6,244 Comments
Cote d'Ivoire World Cup Team Blog
182 Articles | 260 Comments
South Africa World Cup Team Blog
18 Articles | 35 Comments
Nigeria World Cup Team Blog
39 Articles | 111 Comments
Cameroon World Cup Team Blog
11 Articles | 37 Comments
Morocco World Cup Team Blog
43 Articles | 93 Comments
Egypt World Cup Team Blog
178 Articles | 2,453 Comments
Democratic Republic of Congo World Cup Team Blog
10 Articles | 16 Comments
Senegal World Cup Team Blog
21 Articles | 42 Comments
Mali World Cup Team Blog
21 Articles | 16 Comments
Guinea World Cup Blog
29 Articles | 55 Comments
Benin World Cup Team Blog
15 Articles | 4 Comments
Malawi World Cup Team Blog
144 Articles | 640 Comments
Algeria World Cup Team Blog
14 Articles | 152 Comments
Monthly Archives
World 







