one thing professional athletes are known for is a large amount of money they get for playing a sport. While most players do not get paid nearly $350,000 for each basketball game they play, like basketball player Al Horford, a significant amount of athletes from a variety of sports have an annual salary of over million dollars. Although they put in countless hours of work over the years to get to where they are, they do not deserve to be paid millions of dollars to play a sport.
When asked to think of an occupation that deserves to have a high annual salary, firefighters might ring a bell. According to Anastasia, firefighters, while saving people’s lives on a daily basis only have an average wage of $48,000, a fraction of what athletes make. The individuals who have the biggest effect on society in a positive way, such as police officer and teachers, are known to be underpaid, while some athletes who make millions are also said to be "underpaid” because they are compared to athletes who make even more than them. According to Figueroa, most people do whatever they can to stay healthy because an injury can mean losing their job. Athletes, however, still get paid while being injured, and in the case of minor injuries, don’t need to stress about recovery. In some sports, such as the NFL, a team cannot release a player until he is cleared from injury and during that time the team has to pay the player his full salary. Lower salaries could result in more people who work hard for the sport and not for the money to play professional sports. Some players will change teams for an extra million dollars, leaving behind their communities and loyal fans in the process. Lower pay could minimize this issue and make players more loyal to their teams.
According to Anastasia, people may argue that professional sports are a billion dollar industry and that when teams are raking in hundreds of millions of dollars, the players, who are the faces of these teams, deserve a significant portion of this. However, these high salaries also come with a cost. The average ticket price for a football game is over $80, and the average price for an MLB ticket is around $28. To get season tickets for a baseball team, a person would have to pay an average $2,270. These high ticket prices also do not account for the even higher priced concessions. Bottled water costs over $4 at some stadiums and the average price for 16-ounce beer at NFL stadiums is an expensive $7.36. Lowering players salaries could help with these high prices. Even if the lower wages don’t result in lower prices, team owners could use the extra money to give back to the communities that used their own to pay for the stadiums and arenas that teams play out of.
Even though athletes put in a lot of work to get to a professional level, they should not be making millions of dollars. Police officers and firefighters affect society in a positive way and make low wages compared to athletes, who play a game and in some cases have a negative influence on people. Lowering athlete’s salaries could also reduce the cost of going to see them play and buying concessions at games and if the prices don’t change, the money could go to charities. An extra million is enough for some players to switch teams, so lower salaries could make players more loyal to their team and community. Sports should be about the game, not the money.
