Professional athletes are extremely overpaid for the “jobs” that they do. They only entertain for a living and get paid millions of dollars, in some cases, to do so. These athletes are paid for jobs that they only do for a certain number of games and do not even play the games over the course of an entire year. In most professional sports, they play in games for only a few months and then have a few months off. They do practice every day, but is that worth millions of dollars?

Athletes work only a few months out of the year, playing a limited number of games. For example, NFL football players, some of the highest paid professional athletes, only play sixteen regular season games, four preseason games and a maximum of four post season games, giving them a total of 24 games on the season. NBA players, on the other hand, do play a substantial number of games; they play 82 regular season games, and up to 28 postseason games. In Major League Soccer, the teams play 30 regular season games with a chance of five post season games. David Beckham is one of the highest paid players in the history of soccer and definitely the highest paid in MLS; he was paid 250 million dollars to play for five years and ended up getting hurt in one of his first games. I think that is absurd and a waste of money.

Most athletes are getting paid ridiculous amounts for short term contracts; for example Beckham is getting paid 25 million dollars a year for five years, and most people would not make that in their lifetimes. One of the main reasons that ticket prices are so high is that the fans have to pay for the “all-star” salaries. I think that the professional leagues should just start to pay their players normal salaries or at least substantially less than what they are getting now. I realize that practicing for months, day-after-day, would definitely take a toll on one’s body, but I don’t think that that is worth getting millions of dollars for. If the player’s salaries were lower, then ticket prices would also probably be lower and more fans would come.

What do professional athletes actually do for their “job”? They run around playing children’s games, shooting balls into baskets, hitting a ball back and forth, running down the field. The only reason they are there is to entertain people. Athletes aren’t even being acquired because of their skill level any more; it’s all about popularity and how much money that person can bring to that team by attracting more fans, meaning more money. Sure, most professional athletes work hard for a few months out of the year, but what are they doing when they aren’t working? Most likely they are out partying and getting into trouble, because they feel they can just pay off whoever they get in trouble with, using their insanely high salaries.

Some people might say that athletes need to be paid as much as they are because of their high risk of injuries. In some ways I think the athletes deserve to be paid well because they do entertain, and some do play a high number of games with risk of injury. However, the athletes can only be paid high amounts if fans have to pay huge ticket prices to see them play. Lower the ticket cost, lower the players’ salaries, it’s that simple. I’m not saying that the salaries should be lowered to $50,000, but they should be lowered to under a million per player, and if a player feels they need that much money because of injuries; maybe, they shouldn’t play if they are that injury prone. Continuing to pay these players high salaries means they will just want more and more money.

Basically, most professional athletes are paid massive salaries so that they don’t complain and go on strike. They do not even have a real job; most of them will only play until their late 30s or 40s and then they will be so financially secure from their huge salaries that they won’t have to work for the rest of their lives. I believe that most professional athletes are just entertainers who are kept around only to bring in more revenue for their team. The professional leagues should drop the salaries to average salaries of people because the athletes don’t even work for half of the year so why should they be paid so much? The money athletes are being paid would be money better spent on education or paying teachers or people who do something for the community, such as firefighters or policemen, and not spent on overpaid, stuck up, little cry-babies that many of the professional athletes are. I mean, come on, who should cry and complain if they are offered 10 million dollars a year? I know I sure wouldn’t.