I was reading ESPN.com the other day and saw the following headline: “[Commissioner Bud] Selig: MLB took in $6.075 billion in revenue in ‘07”. Think about that: SIX BILLION DOLLARS spent (mostly) by the American public to enjoy major league baseball in one form or another. That’s an average of about $16 for every man, woman, and child in this country. Is this responsible spending on our part? What gain do we as a people, and our nation as a whole, derive from such largesse? These are the issues I want to focus on today…spending our discretionary dollars on PROFESSIONAL sports. I’ll tackle some of the plusses and minuses of amateur sports in another column.
Let me make this clear: this is NOT an anti-sports column. If it were, I’d be the biggest hypocrite in the world, since I watch sports nearly every day. I officiate sports, I study sports statistics, I play various fantasy sport leagues, I even hold season tickets to the Penguins. Obviously, I’m not alone – it takes a LOT of people like me to put over 6 billion dollars into baseball.
My wife, as you may have guessed, is not the fan I am. She will watch some sports with me, and she loves going to the Pens games, but the dollars involved in pro sports frustrate her. She has asked me many times why it is that Peyton Manning is ‘worth’ $18 million per season, but we (as a country) value teachers and policemen at only $30,000-$60,000 per year (and less in some areas).
My grandfather, an avid sports fan, complains all the time about how the money has ‘spoiled’ today’s athletes, and points to things like steroid abuse and Barry Bonds’ attitude as proof.
Such concerns are worth investigating, but the truth is that if you look back through sports history, there have ALWAYS been scandals, bad apples, and public outcry over the amount of money players make. Some examples: pro baseball was almost destroyed in 1919 by a game-fixing scandal involving the World Series. Ty Cobb, who is in the Hall of Fame, once charged into the stands and beat a fan – who had no hands to defend himself. His team then protested his suspension by not showing up for their next game. When Ted Williams signed a contract in 1950 to pay him $100,000 per year, there were articles written all over the country declaring that baseball was dead, that the public would stop attending games because they would resent that salary. Similar things were said in 1976, after the first free agents were declared in baseball. I have heard that same tired song over and over since…when Bonds left Pittsburgh, when Reggie White signed with Green Bay, when Alex Rodriguez signed with the Texas Rangers…everyone asks, ‘when does it end?’ The simple answer is basic economics: if there’s a public demand for sports, there will be an ample supply of cash to pay the players.
Let’s take the $6 billion figure that Major League Baseball took in. That’s an average of $200 million in revenue for each team. The average salary in MLB in 2007 was about $2.8 million. 25 players per team, 30 teams, that works out to about $2.1 billion in salary. No doubt, a lot of money, but it still leaves almost $4 billion to the owners of the teams!!! Even allowing for overhead costs, the owners made a TON of money last season. I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to pay to watch a sport I want that money to go primarily to the players, not the owners.
How do teams get that much money in the first place? That’s easy – from us, the fans. We pay for tickets. We buy jerseys. We watch on TV. We play in fantasy leagues. All these things, plus a few more, provide that huge pot of cash. To me, you can’t blame the players for taking the money that’s available. Nor can you blame the owners for trying to maximize their revenues; after all, they are businessmen first and foremost. Would any of us actually turn down a 5-year, $100 million contract on the grounds that we’d be overpaid?? I seriously doubt it. No, if there’s blame here, it falls on us as fans. We continue to watch the games, buy the tickets, and wear the jerseys, even as the costs rise. If the American sporting public was REALLY so upset about these high salaries, there would be more outcry to not attend games, boycott leagues, etc.
Sports DO have some positive impacts on society. Every sports team creates several hundred jobs – trainers, coaches, accountants, public-relations, etc. The placement of an arena or stadium in a city oftentimes leads to revitalization in that area – certainly in Pittsburgh, the North Shore area has been revitalized since PNC Park and Heinz field were built. Also, almost every big-name athlete you can think of donates considerable time and money to charity, with most having their own charitable foundation. Many athletes do the majority of their charitable work behind-the-scenes and away from the cameras, because they aren’t doing it to boost their image – they are doing it to make a difference. Dale Earnhardt, Sr. was noted for always operating that way, the ‘man in black’ had a heart of gold when dealing with people in need. The Mario Lemieux Foundation has done a lot of great work in the Pittsburgh area – check out www.mariolemieux.org and click on ‘the foundation’ and ‘achievements’. Now, many, if not most, of these top athletes could doubtless give even more to charity than they do, and still maintain their lifestyle – but I suspect that’s true of most of us to some degree.
Furthermore, why do athletes get singled out for the money they make? I read yesterday that the CEO of Merrill Lynch’s salary is now $50 million per year, possibly rising to as much as $120 million per year!! His predecessor was paid an average of $58 million over the previous 4 years – and he got fired for doing a terrible job (For details, see the TMQ article on espn.com by Gregg Easterbrook). When athletes and coaches do a bad job, their team loses and fans are disappointed, but they still can put food on the table. When Merrill Lynch does a bad job, families lose their retirement funds. Merrill Lynch isn’t alone – do a Google search for ‘CEO salaries’. The numbers will STAGGER you.
In the entertainment sector, top-echelon actors and actresses typically have incomes that dwarf those in sports. For example, IMDB.com lists Tom Cruise’s salary for Mission:Impossible at $70 million, MI:2 at $75 million, and The Last Samurai at $25 million plus a percentage of profits. Tom Hanks got $40 million for Saving Private Ryan. Jack Nicholson got $60 million for Batman – and that was 18 years ago, when $3 million was an ENORMOUS sports salary. I hear no outcry to stop watching or making movies, though – simply put, they are paid what the market says they are worth.
In summary, are these dollar figures incredible? You bet. The world would doubtless be a better place if these actors, CEO’s, and athletes diverted a larger portion of their salaries to solving world hunger, disease, and other humanitarian aims. But the fact is that’s not our call to make, and we should not begrudge pro athletes their incomes – they have unique and, to many, amazing skills.
Dave Glass lives in Clearfield with his wife, Suzanne, and their six children. He can be reached at buggyracer@verizon.net