Sports and Money

[Clay Dreslough]

Follow-up to this poll.

[disposablehero]

option 5 - i think sports stars get paid for their ability to generate revenue, and the rest of the business world works the same.

[Clay Dreslough]

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...

[SFSteveG]

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.

[ohms_law]

I tend to agree. There are a couple notable exceptions, but beyond that...

[boomboom]

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.

[beerchaser]

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".

[FRENCHREDSOX]

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...

[beerchaser]

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.

[SirKodiak]

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.

[oriole^]

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.

[disposablehero]

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.

[ohms_law]

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.

[FRENCHREDSOX]

while i make hundreds of thousands.

can I take out a long term loan ?

[disposablehero]

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.

its not allowed so its not explicitly laid out that way. that doesnt mean thats not how its done

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.