Meredith Suess next author in 2016-2017 MLHS senior student editorial series
Pro Athletes Are Paid Too Much
Have you ever thought of how much money professional athletes make in one year? According to Reference magazine, some athletes make anywhere from $160,000 to over five million dollars per year. That means they make more money than doctors, firefighters and military personnel who save people’s lives.
I believe professional athletes should get paid well because they are at the highest level for sports, but they are getting paid way too much. Professional athletes are getting paid to play a game that my own friends, brother and I play. These athletes might be passing, hitting, throwing or shooting, but these are all skills that we learn in high school too. Being on a team, you learn a skill that stays with you throughout your life, and that skill is teamwork. High school and college students do not get paid for the sports that they play, so why should professional athletes get paid so much? Also, athletes should not be getting paid millions of dollars for a season that lasts only 166 days of the year.
Another idea that bothers me is how some athletes make more money than doctors or firefighters who actually save lives, and military members who defend our country for less than $20,000 per year, according to Work Chron. It is not right for professional athletes to be getting paid millions of dollars while people who put their lives on the line to make our country a betterr place and to protect us make significantly less. Athletes might put in a lot of hours for training and travel, but they should still not be getting this much money. Doctors and lawyers also put in a lot of time to get their degrees. Doctors have to have a four-year undergraduate degree, spend four years in medical school and then complete three-to-seven years of residency training before they are eligible for medical licensing. A lawyer also has to have a four-year bachelor’s degree, and then enroll in a law school that will take them three-to-four years to complete. In order to practice law, one also has to clear the bar exam and get a license in a partiular state. A lot of business people have to travel and stay away from their families for a long time, too, but few of them are paid as much as professional athletes.
One way to stop this problem is to put a cap on how much athletes can make in a year, maybe 1.5 million dollars. People who cannot live off that need to rethink their lifestyles. Because they have made it to the highest level in their sports career, they should make more than people who work at mid-level jobs. With putting a cap on how much athletes make, the extra money that the sports organizations have left over could help fund cancer research, a study on how to protect athletes from sports concussions or to help the Children’s Fund, Disabled Veterns and other important causes.
In conclusion, the amount of money professional athletes make playing a game is ridiculous. We should put a cap on how much they make because, after all, they are getting paid to play a game. Instead, this money could go to organizations or research that could actually help improve people’s lives.