I really disagree when people say professional athletes are overpaid. I think any reasonable communist government would make professional athletes the wealthiest people. We're talking about a career that almost always requires an impressive set of mental and physical gifts alongside demanding extremely hard work. To be a major star in the NBA or NFL, you need such amazing athletic gifts that it's almost literally one in a million. Then consider that each and every professional athlete is putting their health on the line to compete. A lifetime of pain can be the result of an athlete pushing himself too hard for too long, or a single game gone horribly awry. Perhaps the stress can't compare to the life and death situations of some other professions, but the fans can ensure there's no escape from failure even if your health remains intact. You know who I think is overpaid? Actors. Not just actors, but they're the worst. Basically everybody in Hollywood. Then the people successfully exploiting the financial system, though they have a very valuable skill, fucking come on. I think America's professional athletes are paid fairly, unless we're speaking relatively, in which case they don't get enough.
Professional athletes are highly paid because they are an effective monopoly. No one wants to see the second most talented athletes play football against each other (except Giants fans, lol). So they're overpaid because they're paid for the marginal value they create (like a monopoly) rather than the marginal cost they incur (like a competitive industry). If athletes were replaceable, then athlete salaries would be only as much as necessary to incentivize athletes to play sports over other professions. My guess is this salary would be quite low, which is why athletes are overpaid (but I mean, they do take risks and should totally be paid more than coal miners under your theory). I can name a couple reasons off the top of my head that this would be low: athletic talent is mostly about shitloads of practice so there's a selection bias where athletes are almost all passionate about what they do so they don't need much incentive, sports are fun, athletes are glorified regardless of how well they're paid, and most athletes are grunting mindless mongrels completely incapable of performing even the simplest tasks necessary to find gainful employment anywhere else. Actors are highly paid because of a glitch in the law - they own their personal brand and can't really sign it over to a studio. So studios spend tons of money building up an actor's brand and only see returns on that investment if that actor decides, on a dumbass California actor whim, to continue working for them. Studios should be able to force actors to commit to that particular studio if they're going to invest so much money; in practice it's very difficult if not impossible to enforce.
Professional athletes rank right under soldiers and law enforcement in the hierarchy of careers taken by individuals who are too stupid to do anything else. I really do feel that athletes, soldiers and policemen only flock to those professions because they have absolutely nothing else going for them in life and it's the only way they can make any sort of real money. It's pretty pathetic how being a professional sports athlete allows otherwise useless and mediocre people to enjoy such privileged status. At least military and police personnel are doing something somewhat useful, even if it means selling their entire identity and individuality to be a cog in a machine with an agenda they may or may not believe in.
You're right, though this ignores the role the leagues have in establishing who the best players are (by virtue of their massive brand power), and the job a league does in promoting. Everyone else in the league gets paid, and you're only assuming the players are getting paid an amount equal to what they create, when it may be lower. Passion is often backseat to natural athleticism and the desire for money. Genetics are required first, then a shitload of practice (usually from a very young age), and that's the reason they should be paid most. Playing sports at the highest level requires intelligence (not soccer). Grunting mongrels can't play the game at a high enough level to become "glorified", which in itself just means you can't take a shit without having to write an autograph. That's interesting.
It's somewhat interesting to see them make so much money, then after only a few years after retiring from sport they manage to fall on hard times.
Yeah, a very good observation. The athletes making top dollar often wind up penniless. I can see an argument for that either meaning they should be paid more or paid less. Forgetting the insult to soccer, intelligence matters when anything becomes intensively competitive. As long as there's an element of skill involved, we're talking about a type of intelligence being at play. Professional athletes exist in the most directly competitive field. You win or lose, both on the field and with your career.
You're right; athletes who perform well on the field do possess a type of intelligence, the same type of intelligence that most lower-order animals exhibit in abundance. "Alligators are geniuses" -Molly, May 2012
If I had to guess, I'd say it's probably because they're accustomed to a specific lifestyle while competiting, and then foolishly continue to life at that pace or even more so after it's over. Also I have to say that "professional athelete" is a pretty broad term. Compare the money earned by an Olympic Pole Vaulter and compare that to a NBA Basketballer. In fact a common current affair story you hear about this time is how many pro athletes struggle to even pay their way to the Olympics.
An alligator in direct competition with another would benefit from being the more intelligent of the alligators. There are natural athletic gifts, then there's intelligence, and the best practitioners of any sport (Jon Jones in the UFC comes to mind for me) possess both. The Olympics are still gung-ho about embracing amateurism. However I think that idea is bankrupt. The best, most entertaining athletes should always be paid to compete.
