Are you offended by how much sports stars make?

So I woke up this morning while getting ready for work, and checked the news. I pulled up this and was incredibly dissapointed with how things are nowadays. Now I'm not entirely salty about the entire situation, but I'll put it into perspective:

I've taught in schools for a while. Nice ones, and very difficult ones. I've taught children with learning disabilities, and behavioural issues, and done my best to do a great job. Naturally, I'm not just in the job for the money, the reward is knowing you're making a difference. So here's my gripe:

This latest footballer makes just shy of £40,000 a day for what he does. I'm sure he's very talented at what he does, I don't doubt that. But how is that fair? In one day, he makes almost double my yearly wages. It took a while for that to sink in. For one days work, even if it's 8-4, he makes over forty thousand pounds. In what world are things like this fair? How can a sports star make, in one day, what most HOUSEHOLDS make in a year. Doctors make between 40-70K a year. The higher tier of Firefighter makes 40k a year. How is this even a thing?

Now I know, this topic has been done to death already, I'm certain. But I'd love to know your peoples thoughts on this. Maybe i'm just coming across as bitter, but I hope we can see beyond that, as it's really not the intention of the thread. Thanks!

If you've got a problem with it, you've got a problem with society around it. Nothing wrong with that, but you start talking about fair like it's something owed and you're only gonna get angry.

Oh, and I think it's lame. But it's nice to read that you've done your best to be a great teacher. A great teacher can go a long way.

stephen fry offended quote.jpeg

serious though it sucks but I'd bet that Footballers work longer hours than Firefighters do, considering Firefighters just sit around some of the time. Not to say that it makes it right, of course.

(also that football guy has the silliest hair and he kinda looks like Jimmy Urine from Mindless Self Indulgence)

Oh my god, you said "offended." Can't you see?! You've doomed us all! They're coming...

Not offended exactly, but I dislike it.

I'm not offended, but I am flabbergasted by those insane sums thrown around. I am however happy that they make more than idols and popstars, because sports stars, idols and popstars don't have long careers compared to normal people, because sports stars put in a respectable amount of effort.

We should be offended by how much incompetent irresponsible rich white men in suits make, and continue to make after they lose their jobs, every month until they die they earn more than most people in the US or even Sweden do every year.

Nope

We don't live in a fair world. You live in a first world nation making a decent living while billions of people malnourished. How is that fair? He gets paid what someone is willing to pay him and you get paid what people are willing to pay you.

I don't begrudge winners for winning, nor am I all too envious of their winnings.

However, I believe the global economy needs an overhaul. A redesign where-in a global standard is set, defining the individual's necessities, as well as the necessities for the upkeep of basic civilization, and therefrom derived will be the target productivity for each and every able human being on the planet. Replace all taxes with forced labor. Paying tribute to humanity in form of actual productivity, rather than hollow financial contributions.

Freedom isn't free. Earning one's rights and freedoms should be harder than just paying your due taxes. I for one pay like two bucks a year, because I'm a dick in that way. How's that right?

Forced labor as an equalizer, that's the road to a better world. So sure, you are winner at some game adding nothing of substance to anybody's life. That's awesome for you and you're free to enjoy the fruits of your winnings. At least after you've earned those rights and freedoms with meaningful productivity.

Then again, idealism is for women (just kidding, sort of). So whatever.

Lol, I have no reason to be offended. But it's seriously retarded sums they are dealing with. I can understand the whole argument that short lived but strong careers would make an exponential amount of more money than a regular job, but jesus christ it has spiraled out of control.

It's a high risk and high reward job. If you are somehow among the best at a sport, you've went through your career with no major set backs in terms of injuries and other life issues which would prevent you from training. You've been dedicated and motivated to stick with something for the majority of your life. You would probably have to be pretty gifted psychically and mentally, being able to perform at the highest level with a shit ton of people watching, which I can imagine would be a difficult thing to do.

Also not to mention other shit like you've probably given up or had to cut back on unhealthy stuff like alcohol, food and drugs. Probably let your backup career path or education suffer as well.

Then if you do finally make it you've got to deal with press/interviews random people talking about you, getting hassled every time you're seen publicly etc etc etc...

Probably not fair. But you're kind of under playing how difficult and stressful that life style probably is and what sacrifices you have to go through to achieve it. If you just look at the benefits of something, of course it's going to sound amazing.

But I've also worked in countries where that isn't the case. You'd be surprised.

Sure, but your entire perspective on this hinges on your acceptance of work as a gamble. I for one do not understand how people are okay with this circumstance of their lives. I find it retarded. I guess that goes into the *give me the strength to accept what I cannot change* territory.

Life as a gamble? That's a fact of life, but only because we didn't change it yet. As a species, we'd be perfectly capable of doing so.

I mean, what can you really say about it? It is pretty horrendous that it would take a teacher something like 6 months to earn what Swansea City's Nathan Dyer makes in a week, but then again schools don't have billion pound sponsorship deals, or 300,000 ticket sales (with attendant pie sales and merchandise) a fortnight. I mean, the money is there and really there's nothing we can do to force them to put it to better use.

Would I rather that the money got spread around a little so that the guys who clean the toilets see a little bit of that money, sure, of course I would. Do I think it would be nice of the clubs to consider holding that money back and funding some charitable works? Well yes (although I'm sure a lot of clubs do give some of their money to charity; although probably this essentially means they run youth football centres and offset the cost against their taxes). And yes it's depressing that scientists struggle to find funding to develop, say, a Solar Panel that can produce hydrogen fuel cells while £100m changes hands for a player transfer, but the bottom line is that the money is there and that's what's going to happen to it.

I also have to say that as ridiculous as the pay is for the top flight players, I don't begrudge some of the lower ridiculous salaries as much because the players only have a 15 year career. Boohoo, I suppose, they can retire at 30, but you know, they need to eat when they're 70 right?

MMmhmm, I bet those firefighters are thinking how glad they are they don't have to spend all day running around a football field as they rush into a burning building to save someone's life.

Sport star salaries (or we should probably say Major sport star salaries - try asking someone from the Olympic...ooo, let's say...Fencing team how much they earn in a year) are just one of the many little injustices of modern life, particularly when you make the comparison to people whose jobs are to save lives/educate the next generation/go to war zones and get blown up for a living. But they're just the top of a pyramid of hundreds & thousands of people who want to make a living out of that sport, when only the very best of the best of the best make the really big money.

At the end of the day sports, and football in particular, has become this self-fulfilling prophecy where players get paid that much because that's what they're worth to the organisation that pays them. Fans pay to watch the games (either at the turnstile or through their Sky subscriptions) so the money flowing into the sport is almost limitless, TV deals guarantee massive incomes to the teams (let's call them businesses) that manage to get to the top tier and to get to that top tier you need very good players and the odd Gareth Bale-style marquee signing. That's why you get teams like QPR and, longer ago, Leeds getting themselves into ridiculous financial situations by gambling on staying in the Premier League or getting to the Champion's League.

Worth noting that, a few seasons back, when Real Madrid bought David Beckham off Manchester United, they made the transfer money back almost overnight in shirt sales alone, never mind the incredible marketing clout that Brand Beckham brought them.

Sports organizations make a shitload of money, if they don't pay the athletes then its just a bunch of rich white guys getting all of that profit. Are you offended by how little mid level employees make in every other major organization?

Just saying. Who's more important to your life? The soccer superstar? Or the fruitpicker who picked the oranges for your breakfast orange juice. Sure, you can easily replace the fruit picker. All it takes is a semi-able body. Regardless, the fruitpicker made a more meaningful contribution to your wellbeing than a the soccer superstar ever could. True fact.

The lowly fruitpicker makes minimum wage, if that. The soccer superstar is an idol to young and old, and rakes in millions and millions. What does that say about the world?

No I just find the transfer sums ridiculous. What does "offend" me is football clubs paying millions for players and then need a council bailout because they are in big debt.

@seppli: Eh, seriously how do define how much a persons time is worth and make it a good system? Society has consistently got better at living standards and pay. Look at what workers were expected to do 100, 200 and 300 years back and you'll see it has gotten much better. Why criticize a system that is slowly getting better and the flaws in the system getting better over with time, with an idealistic situation which is unrealistic to achieve quickly.

Hell, if Real Madrid are stupid enough to offer those sorts of wages then all the power to Gareth Bale and I'm sure his agent. Sadly Football in particular suffers from a great divide money-wise and I worry it's something that will eventually collapse in on itself. The bigger issue for me is that when such money is offered, where is the motivation to do your best on the pitch?

Right now, Gareth Bale as so much damn expectation on his shoulders and MUST perform for them straight away. A lot of players have made the so-called magical move to Real Madrid and struggled to perform so it will be interesting to see how he does. Yes it's to much money, but it's how football is right now. I doubt it will last forever, this sort of thing never does but it's fascinating to see how it develops. But as it's been pointed out before, if the television money bubble ever bursts than a lot of football clubs will be in financial ruin as many overspend what they can afford. Real Madrid is a unique case however, they earn a lot from merchandise around the world.

A guy punches few number into a lottery machine. He wins millions in a lottery. I punch numbers into a machine 8 hours a day and I have to do that for thousands of years before I make that kind of money. Is that fair?!

How? Does the Pope shit in the woods? Yes, he does. That's how. Just take god given facts of life (like everybody's need to defecate), and derive standards from those. Put up the same barrier of entry in front of everyone. This is how much productivity you owe us (and here's why), before you're entitled to the freedoms and rights of modern civilization. Like making indecent amounts of money playing soccer.

I dont begrudge the players ... but the system that makes it so , also the myriad of idiots that thinks that sportmen are actually good examples for society , they take drugs , drink a lot and live pretty unhealthy life outside "training season , beat wifes , etc. no different from pampered movie stars. But eh.... its better for all than having more unemployed people around (in Mexico most football players come from pretty low income families).

That's not the same thing and you know it isn't. I know you probably love the idea of this ridiculous sensational statement, but I think you know it's just you being facetious.

It's a little disappointing a broader societal level, but ultimately they are being paid in relation to the value they bring to the companies and businesses around them. If each player didn't bring more money to their team by being there (through sponsorship, advertisements, merchandise and more) then they wouldn't be paid such high amounts. I think I'd have a bigger problem with sport if this didn't happen; if the players were paid very little while the entire industry was just as big. It's why I find the American think of "College Football" so odd to me. Just thinking how all these players aren't paid at all for what they do and yet bring in enormous sums of money to their Colleges and advertisers. The scholarships they're offered seem like a drop in the ocean compared to the value they are bringing to the table. (But since I'm not American, I can't fully understand it anyway; maybe most of the players think it's a good deal with the astronomical prices for college places in America).

These athletes earn exactly what they should earn considering how much money they generate (depending on popularity/skill) for their respective league. There's endorsement money, live-attraction revenue, tv-revenue, merchandise revenue, etc.

While I can understand you feeling what you do is more important to society so your wage should reflect that, the business aspect between both worlds are vastly different. The sports machine is just a bit bigger, to say the least, than what you do.

And it hurts. It should hurt. Our doctors and soldiers make no where near athlete money, but going by importance and work-volume, they seem to deserve just as much. Accept it though cause that's life.

Ideally speaking, no matter how high up the pyramid your head is, and no matter for what reason, as long as your feet are firmly planted on the ground, that's cool with me. So as soon as soccer stars and the likes go scraping shit off sewer pipes every now and then, I'm cool with them living the high life otherwise - for example. 'Til then, I'll keep finding it rather distasteful.

That's all well and nice, but you haven't actually put forward anything. How much someones time is worth is completely subjective. There is pretty good evidence to suggest that people aren't motivated by productivity goals/guidelines or increase in pay.

Also you're looking at something that is massively complex and directly effects billions of peoples lives. And you want to go into a system which is progressively getting better, gut it out and slap your ideology in it's place. I mean for someone who criticized my earlier post with "Sure, but your entire perspective on this hinges on your acceptance of work as a gamble." You're willing to take a pretty fucking big gamble against something that is proven to work well.

No.

A lot of sports clubs are run as private businesses. In a lot of cases the money the club makes from the player vastly outnumbers what the pays him. I could be spouting bullshit here but currently Bale is the most famous player in the prem he is worth a lot of money in advertising (he is currently the face of lucozade. I read somewhere that madrid will be getting his image rights to use, if madrid see that as being worth more than £300,000 a week then they should be able to choose how much to pay him. Just to be clear I do think the money footballers are paid is ridiculous but at the end of the day they help thier clubs make money and these are private businesses. You have more of an issue with the amount that many of the higher ups in the government and nhs earn.

I'm offended by how much the 'money' people make as opposed to the guys busting their asses on the field. Yeah, it seems messed up that they get paid millions per seasons (the good ones, anyway) but seeing as how most of them piss it away within a decade, I'd say it's about right. Aside from spending it all on car dealerships, after a decade or so of playing, you're basically done - start from scratch.

There are roughly 300 million people in America, maybe 13-15 thousand are professional athletes. So just in the US alone only .00005% of people make a living off of playing a sport. I don't think I can get angry at those few people who with hard work and dedication climbed through the ranks and became the best of the best. They deserve to get paid.

Can't say it offends me. They're getting paid and having all the women they want.

Have no issue with it, the money is there, they are getting it for being the absolute best in the world at something they do. Hate people saying that there are jobs more worthy of that kind of money. What, jobs millions of people have like firefighters and nurses? Supply and demand.

If it's any solace to you, just know that their careers typically don't last long and they get used to spending lots of money. But I agree it's somewhat BS.

In regards to the global economy, what bothers me is there are corporations that own patents etcetera on the genes of seeds and animals. There are corporations who are using up the earth's limited resources to keep up with our demand for shiny stuff. This goes beyond money that the occupy wall street protesters are worried about. In the future, the ownership of vital resources (including food), which we need to survive could be owned by less than 1% of the global population. Mining asteroids is still a long way off. Will we run out of the means to mine the asteroids by then? Will all the land that gets mined remain empty craters? Will the last remaining food sources, owned by a single corporation through patents, have their price raised so high that only half the population can purchase them? Maybe not because there needs to be workers to support the economy. But perhaps most of us will become replaceable with robots, and we will be the useless leeches with no liberty who owe our very existence to our overlords. So we will have to revolt, have a civil war, and when they shoot lasers at us, we will wear our tinfoil hats and dance around making it rain our saviours, the flying spaghetti monsters of yore.

Okay so I was halfway writing my post and decided it was a little cray-cray so I had to finish it in the most authentic manner possible.

Nope. At the end of a day its purely a business decision. If it makes sense to pay someone that much money for the business, who can disagree with that. If it didn't make teams money, they wouldn't pay the price.

More power to players if they can exploit that fact through years of dedication and skill.

Who pays these footballers?

The Teams.

Where do the Teams get the money?

From Tickets, Merchandise, TV ratings and views and advertisements.

Who gives the teams this money?

The People. The People who buy the tickets, watch the advertisements, buy the advertised products and buy the Merchandise.

Sports stars are paid so much because people spend that much on their sports entertainment. That is right - the people of your country care more about being entertained by football than they do about funding schools. That is the cold, harsh truth.

Don't blame the footballer. They and their teams don't earn a cent over what the public is willing to spend on them. If you're going to blame anyone, blame the people.

Who pays these footballers?

The Teams.

Where do the Teams get the money?

From Tickets, Merchandise, TV ratings and views and advertisements.

Who gives the teams this money?

The People. The People who buy the tickets, watch the advertisements, buy the advertised products and buy the Merchandise.

Sports stars are paid so much because people spend that much on their sports entertainment. That is right - the people of your country care more about being entertained by football than they do about funding schools. That is the cold, harsh truth.

Don't blame the footballer. They and their teams don't earn a cent over what the public is willing to spend on them. If you're going to blame anyone, blame the people.

Not really.

Keep in mind that they make a lifetime's worth of money in a few short years, and once they're too old to play, they have to find something good to do with that money.

It's un-american to not be offended by things that have a possibility of being offensive. So yes, I am offended by that you just said that I totally read.

@korolev: Well said!

And blaming the people is just silly.

Offended? No. Because I can't get offended by something that's not offensive. Am I jealous? Yes.

Top sportsmen practise something they love and are good at, lead a strict life style and train about every day to stay in shape, get in the field give it their all to win with the risk of getting injured. Sure the numbers they get paid are crazy, same with boxing or UFC, 15 minutes in the ring and get a nice bag of cash, even more when scoring a nice knock out or get the fight of the night award. But I can't judge them about that without knowing what they have to spent.