Follow-up to this poll.
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Follow-up to this poll.
option 5 - i think sports stars get paid for their ability to generate revenue, and the rest of the business world works the same.
I just edited option 3 so it better matches this. My intent was that it would, but I didn't want to confuse folks by talking about sports stars being paid equal to their marginal revenue...Quote:
Originally Posted by disposablehero
:)
I think if you posted this on a mixed/social board you'd get very diffwerent results. I think that people here tend to understand more the value of someone who can throw a ball 90+ mph to a spot or hit a round ball with a round bat squarely consistantly.
I tend to agree. There are a couple notable exceptions, but beyond that...
option 3.
Just look at the blacksox scandal of 1919. Baseball used to not work this way. The owner could pay its players whatever they wanted to.
Well there's a little more basis for comparison here than in the other poll, but my answer would probably be "a little bit of all four choices".
Its a market driven economy (especially since Free Agency) but considering what an average Joe gets - most players should be more grateful than they are...
FRS has a good point there. I think most athletes would happily play ball for less money than they get, if they had to. Look at the career minor league guys, sticking with it because they are doing what they love and it beats whatever else they might be doing. But if a major league guy (or NFL, NBA, whatever) sees Player X getting $8M per year and they're only getting $7M then they want $9M and they want their existing contract torn up even though they may have just signed a 4-year deal last year.
Yeah, it is capitalism. When pro sports say it is all about the fans, they really mean that it is all about the fan's money. They should be up front about it, and say it isn't about the fans but their money, and that is why they have blackouts, don't want fantasy leagues unless they are getting paid, etc. Actually, it is not even just about the fan's money, they want everyone's money, thus the demand for public funded stadiums.
I don't think it's quite as cut and dried as saying, "It's capitalism." Salaries in sports are not necessarily what you and I think of when we draw our salary; no one in their right mind needs to have an $8 million salary because they can't live on $6 million. The salary becomes a measure of respect for a member of an organization; sort of like the concept of "face" to a samurai in historical Japan. Derek Jeter could still live like a king for $2 million a year, but if Mike Mussina is getting $14 million, people - including Jeter, presumably - start to question if Mussina is really worth seven times what Jeter is to the Yankees.
And of course, the same thing applies to the owners, only much, much more so.
its not about "face". its about how much their name generates for their club and their name generates because, typically, their skills increase the value of their name.
if im an insurance salesman and i sell $250 million worth of policies, while my buddy sells $100 million, i better get a higher commission than him or i'll look for another company that will pay me what im worth ;)
in reality, sports players generate millions while i generate hundreds of thousands, so i expect them to make millions, while i make hundreds of thousands.
yea but, if that were actually the basis of sports salaries, then player's contracts would specify some sort of gate recept sharing. that sort of thing is explicitly not allowed by baseball's CBA. I think that it's disallowed in the NHL as well.
Player's get whatever the market that there in will bear. there a product is all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by disposablehero
can I take out a long term loan ?:D
its not allowed so its not explicitly laid out that way. that doesnt mean thats not how its done ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by ohms_law
why else would a young crappy team sign an old vet with a big name? its not to help their team. its to draw fans of that player to the park.
but... it's not. player salaries have a very small corellation to the team's revenue. Player's, once they enter free agency, get what the market will bear.
can i have a copy of your correlation stats?
i think player X will bring 12 million a year in revenue and im willing to spend 8 million to get it. you think player X will bring in 13 million a year and are willing to spend 6 million.
why will he bring in 12-13 million? because he puts up stats that help the team win and fans want to see the team win.
its still market economics and "what the market will bear", its just whats driving it that we disagree on? i guess we can agree to disagree :)
That's because it is not all about gate receipts. It is also about being subsidized (through stadiums paid through taxes, tax breaks, etc), TV revenues (local and national), advertising, licensing/branding, etc. The union knows where the money comes from, that is why they don't want it tied to the gate.
One funny thing about baseball, most players don't get paid what they are 'worth' when they are worth it, they get paid for promise (high draftee signing bonuses) and what they have done (any number of older players that were good in their prime and now are hardly league average but making a fortune)
Nor do the owners...Quote:
Originally Posted by SirKodiak
I assume the owners would love salaries to be tied to the gate, then they wouldn't have to share the ESPN/Fox contracts, their local contracts, advertising, licensing, etc. Most of that is money guarenteed of a period of time and very stable, unlike the gate that varies with how well the product performs.
yea, no kidding. I think that the owners would fall all over themselves to sign a CBA that tied gate receipts to player's pay.
TV and media is where the money is at. The players and the player agent's and the owners all know where the deep pockets are.
Where our views differ DH, is that I have the sense that in your view a player's value to a ball club primarily comes from how much money the ownership feels that particular player can draw. In my view, that is an aspect of the process for some specific players, but even in cases where it does have an effect I beleave that it's only minor. Im backing up my view with personal observation only at this point, but I could probably dig something up if it's actually important to anyone.
I think it's more about placating ego's. Most "professional" athletes behave in a manner closely resembling that of pre-teen children. They are outwardly moody, selfish, greedy, and petulant. I really don't think that I'd want to spend a whole lot of time around most of the pro's myself.Quote:
Originally Posted by oriole^
Sounds a good description of my character (also that of other "prima donnas" - music artistes,TV 'stars' etc)Quote:
Originally Posted by robinhoodnik
lol
I feel confident that you'd be able to behave yourself in front of a television camera for approximately 45 seconds.Quote:
Originally Posted by FRENCHREDSOX
bah, stop propagating the stereotype Americans have of the French :pQuote:
Originally Posted by FRENCHREDSOX
i think it stems from the fact that i believe there are too many investors and not enough baseball guys in the ownership role. to investors, its all about the bottom line. to baseball guys, its about the hardware in the cabinet (or on their fingers).Quote:
Originally Posted by ohms_law
lmao!Quote:
Originally Posted by SirKodiak
Nah just propagating my own unque IMAGE.Quote:
Originally Posted by SirKodiak
But essentially these people who are in limite supply often mix wealth & manners - unfortunately they dont use their wealth to e taught how to have "style" & "common regards for others" .A last point is that we (the fans) revere too many stars & this leads to even further bloating of their false" self worth (I mean Ted Williams or Tom Cruise never invented anything or went out to work in Calcutta for 30 odd years to save starving children)
well... it depends alot on who you're talking about I think. There are owner's who are more involved, adn owners that are less involved. Each has thier own view of thier role, goals, and the direction the teams should take...Quote:
Originally Posted by disposablehero
Anyway, i'm sure that there are specific instances where you're right. It's an overly broad statement to make about "ower's in general" though.
I think that the 3rd option is the closest to what I think, but I can't quite vote it either. See, the problem is that in a capitalistic economy, you don't get paid according to your ability to do your particular job, or your ability to generate revenue (except perhaps if you're doing sales work on commission). What you actually get paid according to is your ability to sell yourself.
My stepfather, for example, was a top-notch furniture salesman, but he worked in a store where he just got paid an hourly wage, without any sales commission. He was by far their best salesman out of a staff of about a couple dozen; he was the leading salesman each month for all buy about 5 month during the roughly quarter of a century that he worked there. He was well ahead of their other salesmen in his ability to do his job and to generate revenue, but the one thing that he wasn't good at selling was himself. So he never was their best-paid salesman, and made less than lot of guys in other area furniture stores who were only middle-of-the-pack in their stores. (If you're wondering why he didn't do a better job of selling himself, either by getting better pay at the store he worked at, or by going to work at a different store, it was because he was an alcoholic; the bosses at his store kind of looked the other way if he went on a drinking binge and missed a few days work drunk every now and then. He was afraid that a different employer might not look the other way, and that the place he worked might stop looking the other way if he started asking for higher pay.)
I don't like how sports players are getting paid this much but if they can generate the income that they do then i have to say they deserve the money.
They generate the money because of you & me;This rich "sportsmen" thing has only occured really since the advent of general TV & the developmentQuote:
Originally Posted by rollsroyce11991
of sports related -TV .Ask any world class Handballer or lacrosse player how much they earn & they will make you feel sorry for them considering the hours of training & sweat they put in...
It would be nice to see (but I know impossible to do) a redistribution of TV revenue to all sports & would lessen the power of these overpaid atheletes (I MEAN DOES a-rod really need 26 mill a year or could he "survive" with 15 ?)
so the owner should keep the extra 11 million for his heirs instead?Quote:
Originally Posted by FRENCHREDSOX
Of course not. It's for me!:DQuote:
Originally Posted by disposablehero
Well it's not impossible. They do it (or did it) in the all the Communist countries (China, Cuba, East Germany, the U.S.S.R.). Cuban baseball stars and Russian hoops stars could be famous, and live a good life, but they didn't pull in $26 million. Instead that money went to other athletes like the Olympic basketball and volleyball and swimming and gymnastics teams.Quote:
Originally Posted by FRENCHREDSOX
The U.S. does this to a lesser extent. In theory, A-Rod should give about half his income to the feds in income (in fact, he probably gives close to zero because of all the loopholes in the system -- but that's a different story). Then the feds sent money to the states in the form of education and block grants, who do things like build parks that I play Ultimate Frisbee on.
:)
No its not impossible but the examples you gave were PAST "achievements" (ecept for Chinese athletes) but I would like to see (even though I am an avid sports fan) a redistibution to help lesser sports become major sports in the future from Handball to Squash to Bazooka shooting...Quote:
Originally Posted by Clay Dreslough
My grilfriend plays on a semi pro team in the UK & South Africa...Very physical sport but needs a little more "bite" to become a good TV sportQuote:
Originally Posted by Clay Dreslough
eh, that's just a waste IMO. 4 major sports in the US market is already a streach on fan's time and attention spans. If those sports are ever to be popular, they can become popular on thier own merits. (and that's not even considering the most popular "sport" in the US, NASCAR racing...)Quote:
help lesser sports become major sports in the future from Handball to Squash to Bazooka shooting...
ESPN would love your ideas though, i'm sure.
:)