This issue is not really an issue that effects the lives of everyone and to some people this is probably not a big deal at all, but if you have ever played in sports game at any level where you are playing a team that is unfairly matched up against you. You think after they are crushing you and the game is obviously out of hand, but they continue to pour it on to the point where you are embarrassed by the onslaught that just took place on the the court. I remember junior league basketball game where there would always be that one team where the coaches son was the star player followed by a handful of other handpicked players to make a team that is just better, faster, taller and stronger than every other team. Playing against this team was degrading and often made you wonder if you even wanted to play again. When you’d look up at the scoreboard and see a score like 20- 70, it would hurt and was embarrassing to walk off the court and have to talk to your parents or your friends about it. Or it would just be really awkward and they would try to not talk about it but that just made it even more awkward and uncomfortable.

Via Stack.com

While being on the losing end of these massacres is always a depressing experience, when you are on the winning end and you are simply outplaying your opponent, what else are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to just give up and stop trying? When the other team just stops trying and is just trying not to run up the score, that to me is almost even more disrespectful. Its like “I know that I’m better than you guys. We do not even have to try in order to beat you guys.” To me, that is even worse. You are there to play the game and play your best and do the best, it would be insulting to be for you to give anything less than your best. If my team won against a team that was out there and wasn’t giving their best, a win would not feel the same and it definitely would not feel as though you won.

Now we see both sides of this argument (in a 15 year old junior league basketball sort of way) we can apply this to college and professional sports where the stage is hundreds of times larger with bug stadiums with flashing lights  and if stadiums that seat 50,000 people wasn’t enough for you, the games are televised for the whole entire world will see. Now imagine the situation that we described above where are you are simply getting destroyed by the opposing team and they are not letting up and continue to to run up the score and just add insult to injury all while millions of people are watching and you’re going to be made fun of by fans and on social media after the game. Imagine losing in such a fashion in front of a audience that is not as comforting and forgiving as our own parents.

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Running up the score is something that I find to be somewhat unsportsmanlike but you sign up to play the game to the best of your ability and that goes for the other team as well. The better team is going to prevail and that is how sports work. That is why yo dedicate so much time training in the gym and on the field, dedicating yourself to a professional sport is done so that you can be the best player so your team can be the best and win games.

Often times in college and professional sports, if you are winning a game by a large margin, you will take out the starting team in order to bring in the back up team. This is done for several reasons such as keeping the starters healthy and preventing injuries for them but also in order to give the backups some real game-time reps. The opposing team will often see this as unsportsmanlike especially when the backup team comes into the game late and continues the domination that was already occurring. Now this I do not find unsportsmanlike at all. Those guys coming off the bench are hungry for those minutes and they have a lot to prove out there while they are all out there fighting for a starting spot.

Overall, I find that running up the score in professional sports can be in sportsmanlike in some cases like in basketball when teams throw down dunks at the end of the game when they are up big where they are obviously just trying to insult the opposing team. But in most cases sports are based on the idea that these athletes are going to go out on the field or the court or whatever and give it everything they have for the whole time they are out there and if that means crushing the other team, you are out there to prove you are better and that is how you do it.

The debate over how much professional athletes should be paid is one that will likely rage on forever. Many people see these pro athletes simply playing a game and somehow they get paid more than doctors who save people’s lives and the president of the United States who runs the entire country. While this often seems the case, many people see the hard work and dedication that these athlete put towards their craft, a work ethic that is comparable to that of a doctor or the president. Both of these sides have valid arguments but ultimately, these athletes are always going to be making ridiculous amounts of money and people will always have strong opinions about it.

Via The Spectator

Although I have a tremendous love for sports, I sit here and look at the contracts that athletes have, making 20 or 30 MILLION dollars a year… a sum of money that is larger than I will likely ever make in my entire lifetime. On top of that, student loans and mortgage payments haunt my future and I am sure I will look at the money those athletes make and see it as even more unfair. Now if we look at some statistics, this situation seems to be even more unfair. The highest paid doctors make just around $500,000 a year and the highest paid astronaut at NASA makes just over $100,000 a year. Both of those are a nice chunk of change but then we take a look at the lowest paid player basketball player on the Chicago Bulls in 2012 made $850,000. Now this player probably never even played in a game. He got paid to sit court side at 82 basketball games a year. Seems unfair by the fact that I am going to work my butt off for the next 40-50 years and I still may or may not be paying back student loans.

Via Odyssey

Now we can sit here and complain about the amount of money that these athletes make all day long, but in the end, we the fans are the ones that dictate how much these athletes make and we continue to increase their salaries constantly. We are the ones that mindlessly hand over 100 plus dollars for a ticket to any professional sports game. We are the ones that empty our pockets on overpriced  licensed hoodies and gear along with the craziest concession prices that are often hard to believe, but that still never stops us. If we stopped buying these overpriced and decided that these things were not worth what they are charging, big sports franchises would have no choice but to ultimately lower their prices which in turn would devalue sports and the amount of money that these professional athletes make.

Now many people completely agree and are fine with the amount of money that athletes make. While people think they are just out there playing a game, their job entitles a lot more and it is hard to put a monetary value on the things they do that are not just playing the game. There is no way to put a price on the inspiration that these athletes provide to children and people and show them that they can achieve their dreams and can even make their job someday something that they love to do and are passionate about.

Another argument for why these athletes should be making this crazy amount of money is that these guys truly put their bodies on the line to provide us entertainment. The surgeries and recoveries and physical therapy plague the lives of many players and end up being a chronic problem for them for the rest of their lives. This money to some people offer up suitable compensation for the risk that these people take simply in order to entertain us. These issues that haunt athletes for the rest of their lives may make it difficult for athletes to find another job after their athletic career. The career of an athlete only last an average that is just around 10 years where the average person can work till they are in their 70’s.

In my opinion, I do not know how much money pro athletes should be paid. Like we said before, there is really no way to value what athletes add to society. Many people think that athletes do not work as hard as they do as they are just playing a game but I know these athletes devote just as much time to their craft as any profession does. What they do is not easy and they make so much money because not just anyone can do what they do. I have a lot of respect for what they do but at the same time, the contracts that are being dealt out today seems crazy, Earning 30 million dollars each year seems ridiculous but who am I to talk when sports are a huge part of my life and I am one of those idiots that drops hundreds of dollars on tickets and merchandise.