There’s been a lot of talk recently about whether or not professional athletes are being overpaid relative to the importance of their jobs. And, while it is true athletes can make an absurd amount of money, I think a lot of people are forgetting about a few key points in their rants against athletes. But before I get into the details, I want to explain why this issue is important. How is this a civic issue? Athletes in professional sports compete in their sports (obviously) but they also compete for your time, your money, and your support.You deserve to know why the ticket prices have increased, or why so many people have resorted to buying $30 Chinese-made knockoff jerseys instead of paying $100 for the “real” ones. For better or worse, sports fans are invested in their teams and the discussions surrounding the role of money in sports are important to them.

Unpopular opinion time: I do not think that athletes are paid too much money.

I think they are paid ridiculous amounts of money, but I don’t think it’s too much. Why is this? Well let me tell you.

The main arguments claiming athletes are overpaid are generally feeble and generally lack logic. The comparisons they draw (and they love to draw comparisons) are noble but are ultimately not plausible. Let’s take a look.

Their job isn’t important enough to make that kind of money.

Umm… think again. This is a popular argument used as it questions why someone playing a sport deserves to make more money than, say, a teacher. Well, unfortunately, being deserving has nothing to do with it. Those who subscribe to this argument note that teachers, police officers, firefighters, and doctors all make less money than most professional athletes, even though their jobs are much more noble and important to society. But while this is true, this argument doesn’t consider why this is so. This type of wishful thinking could be easily countered by applying some basic economics because the market determines the price.

Supply and demand. On perhaps day one of an economics course you will learn that when something is in high demand or short supply, people will pay a lot of money for it. Well, with professional sports, we see both short supply and high demand. The amount of people who make it to professional sports constitutes not even a fraction of the people who played that sport at any other level. These athletes are the best of the best and people are willing to pay to see them. Teachers, police officers, and everyone else are generally in great supply. In fact, any recent education graduate will tell you that there are more teachers looking for jobs than there are jobs to fill. And, while unfortunate, this is how the job market works.

Why do we spend so much money on sports when we could just as easily use it to solve the glaring social issues we face today?

This may be hard to hear, but perhaps the amount of money we spend on sports speaks to what we value as a society. While I am not arguing against helping the poor or saving the environment, I also do not find it odd or disturbing that we place such a high value on sports. We are advanced enough as a society that we can afford to spend money on entertainment. Evidently, we hold our entertainment in a rather high regard. This argument also looks past the fact that some of the leading philanthropists in our society are athletes who are giving back to their communities. But, this aside, the money athletes make is a direct response for this
need for entertainment. Another reason athletes are paid so much is because owners are willing to pay them that much. An owner who is not willing to spend the money will find themselves with a bad team, and bad teams don’t make money.

Not even the President makes that kind of money.

Well people don’t usually get into politics to make money. Honestly I’m not really sure why this is as popular an argument as it is, but I’ve come across it in nearly every article I’ve read. The President is a public employee who’s salary is paid for by taxpayers, so of course it’s not millions of dollars. Athletes are private sector employees who are at such a premium that we are willing to pay them as much money as we do. Also, past Presidents often make most of their money through book deals and speaking tours, and we seem to have no problems with that.

Not only do they make too much money, but they also are greedy and complain that it’s not enough.

Why are we blaming the athletes? I find no fault in people using their skills to benefit themselves (assuming they do it in a way that doesn’t hurt others). I also find it hard to believe that if any of us would not do the same if we were put in the same situation.

Perhaps I am missing the point, but I don’t think I am. I think if people find issue with the amount of money professional athletes are being paid, they should look inward to what we value as a society when assigning blame. While there are certainly more noble professions, the fact remains that the righteousness of one’s profession has no relation to the amount they are paid. If this were true, the director of a non-profit would make billions while the CEO of a pharmaceutical company that drastically marks up the price of essential medications would be struggling to get by. So while the argument stating athletes are overpaid has some merit, I ultimately can’t believe that we should accept it.

Sources:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/366795-do-athletes-get-paid-too-much-money

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20130427/discuss/704279991/

http://www.csusignal.com/editorial/article_c259fe94-0fa9-51dc-b075-96446f518af3.html

A few weeks ago I talked about the college requirement for some pro athletes. In short, the National Football League and National Basketball Association, specifically, require some college attendance to those who seek to play in them. Today I am going to examine what happens when those athletes are forced to attend college and the potential hardships they face. Today I will examine the question of whether or not college athletes should be compensated for their services.

This issue has been around for quite a while with no real major developments other than it being brought to national prevalence. The reason for this is that this issue is perhaps one of the most complicated ones in all of sports. There are many conflicting ideals and groups and the answer may not be so clear cut as to receive a simple “yes” or “no”. So, in order to fully understand this issue, we must first look at the history behind it.

The NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) formed in the early 1900s as a way to standardize rules and regulations for college athletics. This changed in the 1950s due to the emergence of college football as a large television market, and it was the first big influx of money into college athletics. To make a long story short, the NCAA assumed more control over its member schools and began to regulate college athletics beyond the rulebooks. As a result of the rapidly increasing revenue of the NCAA and individual colleges and universities, certain groups of athletes began to ask if they would be getting a share of the money that they had helped earn. What happened next was perhaps one of the greatest instances of framing in human history.

To combat workers compensation claims, the director of the NCAA in 1964 coined the term “student-athlete.” By manufacturing this term, the NCAA could frame the issue such that the athletes were viewed as “students first, and athletes second.” They claimed that since these were students and amateurs, they could not be paid. In fact, they were actually already being paid in the form of an education. This strategy was massively successful, as can be seen by the fact that this is the very same argument we are having today. In 50 years the stances of the two sides have not changed.

The argument for paying players is rather simple, they are the ones bringing in the money yet they see none of it. In fact, they can’t even profit off their own name according to NCAA rules. Additionally, the “student-athlete” model is a facade that can easily be broken down by taking a closer look. A Division I football or basketball player spends nearly 40 hours a week (in season) in practice, which means that their status as athletes is essentially a full time job. To have a full time job on top of school and homework is not an easy thing, and when so much pressure is being put on them to win in their respective sport, their role as a student takes a sort of back seat. And to the argument that these athletes are being paid with an education, many football and basketball players never wanted to go to college in the first place, yet they were required to. Additionally, while many football and basketball players are given stipends meant to cover their costs of living, they are often not enough and the fact that many of them come from poorer families means they can’t cover the difference. In short, these players seem to be forced into a system which requires them to work without them being compensated (in their eyes).

The argument against paying players can easily be written off as rich people wanting to keep their money. And, to a degree, it’s hard not to view it in this way. However, some of the arguments against paying athletes do speak to valid concerns. But first, we must look at the illogical arguments that many people make. First off, an argument is often made that it would be a logistical nightmare to pay athletes. This is some Class A bullcrap. Just because the alternative is hard doesn’t mean its okay to deny a person their rights. The fact is if a group of people deserve to be paid, you can’t deny them it on the basis that it would be too hard. Another largely invalid argument is that paying athletes would ruin the “integrity” of college sports. First off, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of integrity involved in making billions off the backs of unpaid kids. But, looking past that, the amateurism to which this integrity alludes to is really a construct created by the NCAA. The notion that the athletes (namely in football and basketball), play for the love of the sport is a little misconstrued. Many athletes are also playing because they are being forced through college before going pro and making their money. So while I’m sure many athletes are playing for the love of their sport, they are also playing for their future payday.

Now, moving past this there are some legitimate concerns about compensating athletes. First off, would big schools gain an unbeatable advantage over small ones based on their ability to raise money? I sure hope not. Coming from a big school, I know Penn State might benefit from this, however it seems like it would ruin college football to create a system where athletes go to the highest bidder, and the highest bidder is only ever one of a few schools. Also, what kind of values are we instilling if athletes choose universities based not on their ability to educate, but on the size of their wallets?

So, while I do not believe the current system is fair, I’m not sure that paying college athletes is the right way to go. I think the solution rests on two actions. First off, professional leagues (actually just the NFL and NBA) need to invest in developmental leagues. The NBA needs to get rid of their age requirements for their D-League and the NFL needs to create some sort of minor league. This would allow the few athletes who are good enough to play straight out of high school (refer back to the previous post if you have issue with this). More importantly, this would ensure that the athletes who do go to college truly value their education as opposed to being forced into it. Secondly, the NCAA must allow their athletes to profit off their own name. No other student in America would be kicked out of college for agreeing to be sponsored by a product, yet for some reason this rule applies only to the people it matters most to. The NCAA and the schools shouldn’t be allowed to profit off the players if the players themselves can not.

While this issue is incredibly complex, and difficult to fit into one blog post, I do hope I’ve done some justice and shed some light on it. If you have a different viewpoint than mine, feel free to share it! While perhaps my idea is not the absolute best one, I do believe that something has to be done. The fact that no major progress has been made in the last 50 years is appalling to me. We need to resolve this issue and we can’t keep pushing it back.

Sources:

http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/why-ncaa-athletes-shouldnt-be-paid

http://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/6778847/college-athletes-deserve-paid

Should athletes be paid to play?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Collegiate_Athletic_Association#Football_television_controversy

The deliberation I attended was entitled “The Birds, The Bees, Reducing STD’s: Let’s Talk About Sex[ual Health].” The group led a discussion on different ways to encourage sexual health among the population. The three approaches they looked into were improving sex education, changing legislation surrounding prostitution, and rethinking the current healthcare system.

The deliberation team was able to present well and generate good audience discussion. The audience was completely comprised of students, although there were only about ten of us so there may have been a slight lack in diverse viewpoints. After the deliberation, it was the conclusion of nearly everyone that while all three approaches had good merit, the root of each one was better education. The group seemed to gravitate towards the idea that better sex education was the best way to improve sexual health.

Pretty much everyone in the group agreed that we need better options when it comes to sex ed, however there were some differences in opinion on how exactly to go about it. One of the main reasons for this that I found interesting was the apparent inability of many Americans to differentiate between comprehensive sexual education and promoting sex. Many people see any attempt at teaching kids about sexual health as encouraging them to have sex, a viewpoint that is extremely detrimental to any productive discussion that one may seek to have. The group seemed to recognize that this was a big problem and it created a sort of division among opinions. One side felt that although this view was wrong it should be considered when designing different sex ed programs, while the other felt that they should sort of “steamroll” over people who thought like this in favor of giving kids the best possible education.

The other division in how to approach sex ed stemmed from whether it should be optional or not. This viewpoint considered the notion that comprehensive sex ed courses should be available but optional dependent on the desires of the parents. This created a fissure within the deliberation group as well. On one hand, some students argued that the parents should be allowed to decide whether their child receives an education on sexual health in school or at home, which would allow them to instill their personal values within their children. On the other hand, some students believed that sex ed was too important to make it optional.

This view also stemmed from the discussion surrounding our personal sex ed experiences. Through the deliberation we came to realize the true range of sex ed programs throughout the country or even just Pennsylvania. Because everyone is coming to college with drastically different levels of understanding sexual health, a good portion of the audience came to the conclusion that there needs to be some baseline for sex ed programs in grade-schools. They believed that by setting a standard for the education they could improve many of the problems currently associated with the lack of knowledge, like STDs/STIs for example. They also argued that this would dismantle the taboo surrounding the subject currently, which would allow for the problems to be addressed more directly without the fear of offending people with the way in which they talk about it.

Through the rest of the discussion, we all came to realize that the other two approaches were essentially a more convoluted or roundabout way of tackling sexual education. So, although there was some disagreement in exactly how to do it, everybody came to the general conclusion that best way to improve sexual health was through improved sexual education.I wish were able to spend more time discussing the best ways to implement it, however I thought the deliberation went very well and I am glad to say that I came out of it with some new perspective on the issue.