Overall, professional athletes are well compensated. They work far too hard to not be compensated fairly. All players are so committed to their sport that they are willing to risk harm in order to participate, especially in a sport like football where contact is the norm. Athletes are subjected to an enormous amount of psychological stress. Many suffer from anxiety and depression because of the pressure to perform.
The highest paid athletes in the world are probably the coaches. Coaches who manage to turn talented young people into winners will be rewarded with big dollars. College football and basketball coaches are usually among the top earners for their profession. Other coaches may make less but have greater success than their counterparts; examples include Bruce Springsteen's manager Steve Van Gelder and NBA coach Gregg Popovich. Some athletes have managed to become very rich without playing a single game in the NFL or NBA. These are the owners of sports teams who sell advertising space on their uniforms.
Athletes can make huge amounts of money if they achieve fame and notoriety. This could mean having your picture taken holding a trophy or winning an award. If you aren't famous already, it can be difficult to get noticed by either potential employers or fans. But even if you do become famous, your salary will not change. Being an athlete is a tough job. It requires long hours training with your team mates and following a strict diet in order to perform at your best. Most athletes will need to find another job to pay the bills.
Pro athletes make a lot of money, and they deserve every penny of it. The players are not paid to sit on the sidelines; they are paid to risk everything and participate in the sport. In addition, athletes get paid even after they retire from playing sports.
Elite athletes are always going to be rich because there are so few of them. If you're an athlete and you want to get rich, then play major league baseball or football - not basketball. It takes a very special type of person to be able to perform at the highest level in those sports, and there are just not that many of them.
The top earner among all pro athletes is probably New York Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera. With his $1 million salary, he has been called "the best player in baseball". Rivera has also won three World Series rings with the Yankees. He is only the latest in a long line of great pitchers who have worked with George Steinbrenner's ownership team to bring in big bucks. In fact, since the Yankees' new ownership group took over in 2009, all of the team's highest-paid employees have been players or coaches hired by former Yankees manager Joe Torre during his tenure as the team's president.
However, one of the reasons pro sportsmen earn so much money is that people like watching their games. Media firms pay billions of dollars to leagues and teams for the rights to broadcast games on television and other media devices. These companies pay because they know millions of people will watch the games.
The huge revenues generated by sports stars allow their clubs to afford to pay them large sums of money. Footballers, for example, can expect to be given contracts worth up to $1 million a year. This is far more than most people make in a lifetime!
Athletes also receive big payments for appearing in commercials or hosting awards ceremonies because these jobs provide an opportunity for them to promote their brands while getting paid at the same time.
Some athletes choose to cash in on their fame by setting up their own businesses. They might do this by becoming celebrity coaches or fitness trainers or anything else that could help them make money from being known by many people.
Others become politicians or entertainers. Some continue playing sports at a high level and make lots of money this way.
Still others use their fame to raise funds for worthy causes which are close to their hearts. Many famous people have gotten involved in cancer research because so many of their friends and family members have been affected by this disease. By helping find a cure, they hope to keep their friends and families safe from it forever.
"Sports get paid millions of dollars to play a game," is a typical argument used to justify criticizing professional athletes' annual salaries. It is, nevertheless, entirely warranted. The highest-paid athlete in the world is likely to be NFL quarterback Peyton Manning who signed a $44 million contract with his team, the Denver Broncos, in 2012. Other notable athletes who have been praised for their performance but criticized for their salary include Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan.
The best basketball players in the world can make more than $10 million per year. While these figures are certainly impressive, they should not come as a surprise given that sports stars often become celebrities who then can make even more through advertising and merchandise sales. Actors also can earn hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars per year, so there is no reason why people should be shocked by the earnings of athletes.
It is true that most professional athletes do not make any money during their career because they are paying off huge loans to fund their sports training and equipment purchases. However, some athletes do well enough to put their money into savings or invest it.
Overall, athletes' high salaries are not justified because they are not based on their performance but rather on their popularity among viewers.
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