# data[].attributes.body
C-This article was made on october 21, 2019 so it is still a credible
R-It shows how athletes are not overpaid and what they deal with on a daily basis and why they deserve the pay they get
A-This article was made by a university so it should it should be credible and a real article.
A-The info seems accurate it even going into the life of different athletes.
P-The purpose is to show people what pro athletes deal with on a daily basis.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Published on December 20, 2019 by Sam Hewitt

The Life of an Athlete

It is every young athletes dream to one day, become a professional athlete. What is not to love about it? The fame, playing a sport for a living, and the major salary that you will have. To some people, athletes have the best job possible and anyone would give up what they do to be a professional athlete if they had the chance. Professional sports have been around for a long time and the stigma behind them of being full of extremely talented has never changed. They have always been put at the top of the list when it comes to being special. But now, some people are asking how special are they? Do they really deserve the treatment that they get? This is something that I will address in this post and dive further into both sides of opinions so hopefully you too, can decide for yourself.

The Journey

The Journey to become a professional athlete is unlike any other process. Some starting as young as when they take their first steps. Most professional athletes will participate in a sport their entire life up to becoming a pro athlete. Working every day on the skills necessary for the game, they will put in hours of sweat, tears, and pure dedication. With all of this hard work the numbers are absolutely astounding with the amount of people that will actually make it to seeing themselves on the big stage one day. According to the NCAA, only 1.7 percent of college football players will make it to the professional level and only 0.8 percent of high school players will make it pro. These numbers are a loud statement to show how hard it is to get to the highest level possible.

A Day in The Life

Once a player at either the high school or college level of a sport has decided that he wants to go professional, the amount of levels that he has to go through is numerous. Take a baseball player for example... first, he will start out in various levels of minor leagues going from low rookie ball, high rookie ball, short season, low A, high A, double A, triple A, and THEN Pro Ball. Once a player accomplishes making it to the highest level, he is then responsible for a long season of playing. In Major League Baseball, a single season consists of 162 games. Playing multiple games, a week can be tiring on not only your body, but also your mind, and social life. To give another example, in the NFL, a single season consists of 17 games with 1 game a week and practices. This also includes preseason games and a training camp. In order to play at the highest-level, athletes have to give up a lot more than most people realize. During the season an athlete will be lucky to be able to find time to visit his family and friends back home. When an athlete's season comes to an end, he is able to spend that time in whatever place he wants to however, the work sure is not over. During the season an athlete will spend his time in whatever city his team is in. When the they are in the off season, they move home to continue work with trainers, rest, and more education towards the game. An athlete's life consists of sacrifices that an everyday person is fortunate enough to not have to deal with.

The Big Two

Two of the most well-known professional sports leagues in the world are the MLB and the NBA. In an article written by Liz Mullen and Bret McCormick, they state that membership in the exclusive $100 million-dollar club has exploded. The article states that in the past three years 46 nine-figure NBA contracts, with a total value of nearly $6.5 billion, have been signed, based on exclusive SBJ research. With all this put together Mullen and McCormick stated that the two leagues together accounted for about $10 billion in playing contracts. Some people are arguing that because the NFL does not have guaranteed contracts like the MLB or NBA, that this is the cause for the increase in large salaries.

On July of 1996, agent David Faulk negotiated the first $100 million sports contracts in North American history. This was astonishing to so many people and a lot of people couldn't believe it. Faulk talks about how when you look back at the time when pro sports were coming about players still were paid high amounts of money for the time period. Today, for the amount of hard work that is put into their jobs, $100 million dollars is a good amount. The chart below is a great representation of the number of contracts that each league has in it. The MLB and the NBA far exceed the NFL and the NHL.

Beyond the Game

A lot of people fail to recognize the amount of work that goes on outside of the sport for all professional athletes. For example, Mike Trout, making $34 million a year is one of the highest paid athletes in professional sports however, he does a lot of outside work. He has done a lot of work with Subway, and various apparel brands. Players can make a lot of money from having endorsements and doing a lot of outside work besides what is done on the field. A lot of their fame comes from doing things outside of the team. Another example like this is with Stephen Curry. He is one of the highest paid players in the NBA and he has recently partnered with State Farm. Players make a LOT of money by doing these extra endorsement activities and it is a great way for them to gain fame as well.

The chart below represents all of the contracts that each league has signed, over $100 million since 2016. There is a clear trend that can be seen from the results.

What To think?

When addressing the debate about the salaries of athletes, many different opinions can be made logical. Fred Bowen who is Washington post and sports writer states that professional athletes can make almost 700 times what a law enforcement officer makes in a year. Most people would say that this is ridiculous, and it should not be that way. However, when you look into the amount of time it takes for a professional athlete to get to wear they are and establish a name, the amount of money makes sense. Becoming a professional athlete is one of the hardest things to do in the world and if done, the reward of a large salary should be given!

Sources

https://eds-b-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.samford.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=7&sid=e9ead6e5-2a72-439c-90a8-76f6d05b3d52%40pdc-v-sessmgr01
https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2019/10/21/Labor-and-Agents/Salaries.aspx

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It is every young athletes dream to one day, become a professional athlete. What is not to love about it? The fame, playing a sport for a living, and the major salary that you will have. To some people, athletes have the best job possible and anyone would give up what they do to be a professional athlete if they had the chance.

# data[].attributes.body
C-This article was made on April 1st, 2019, so it is still a credible source.
R-It shows the reasons that Pro athletes are over paid
A-This article is made by scholastic and is credible.
A-The info is accurate and there is no errors.
P-The purpose of the article is to show why they are over paid.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
There's no question that professional athletes are paid too much. In 2018, the average annual salary for an M.L.B. player was $4.1 million. Mike Trout, a centerfielder for the Los Angeles Angels, gets $35.8 million a year. In the N.B.A., the average annual salary was $7.1 million. In the N.F.L., the average was "only" $2.7 million, but one of football's highest-paid players, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, just signed a four-year contract for $134 million.

Compare those wages with the national average salary for a firefighter: about $45,000 a year. It's about $56,000 for a schoolteacher and nearly $74,000 for an emergency room nurse.

Does it make any sense that someone who throws a football for a living is paid more than 700 times as much as someone who helps save people's lives, or that swinging a bat gets you nearly 650 times as much as educating kids? In my opinion, no.

# data[].attributes.body
C-This article was made on April 1, 2019, so it is still a credible source.
R-It show reasons that athletes are overpaid or not overpaid and in this padlet we are focusing on the no they are not over paid.
A-This article is made by scholastic .com which I believe is a credible source or hope it is too.
A-The Info is pretty accurate, just like the last article the are no grammar errors and the facts are correct.
P-The purpose of the article is too show you both sides of the argument and try to convince the other side.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
There's no question that professional athletes are paid too much. In 2018, the average annual salary for an M.L.B. player was $4.1 million. Mike Trout, a centerfielder for the Los Angeles Angels, gets $35.8 million a year. In the N.B.A., the average annual salary was $7.1 million. In the N.F.L., the average was "only" $2.7 million, but one of football's highest-paid players, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, just signed a four-year contract for $134 million.

Compare those wages with the national average salary for a firefighter: about $45,000 a year. It's about $56,000 for a schoolteacher and nearly $74,000 for an emergency room nurse.

Does it make any sense that someone who throws a football for a living is paid more than 700 times as much as someone who helps save people's lives, or that swinging a bat gets you nearly 650 times as much as educating kids? In my opinion, no.

# data[].attributes.body
C-This article was made on March 8, 2017 so it is a credible source.
R-This article  is important because it tells us facts about how much athletes are being paid.
A-This article is made by college students but is still credible since it is by people who may be studying something like this.
A-The article is pretty accurate, there's no grammer issues and it stays on topic the whole time.
P-This article is used to persuade people of both sides of the argument to switch to the other side.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an Army General with over 20 years of service makes approximately $192,864 a year. The 2014 median compensation for a General Surgeon was just under $395,456 a year. The men and women who run straight into fires, risking their lives to save others make only $46,870 per year. So why are professional athletes being paid millions or even billions of dollars each year?

Sure, athletes are physically pushed to their limits day in and day out. Their performance directly affects the worth of the teams for which they play. These teams are huge organizations worth billions of dollars, but are they worth more than a human life?

We are paying athletes ridiculous amounts of money to physically perform on national television for public entertainment. Meanwhile, soldiers, firefighters and policemen perform physically to save the lives of others on a daily basis. Shouldn't these lives be worth more than entertainment?

Cristiano Ronaldo makes $56 million a year, Kobe Bryant made $250 million a year and Barack Obama made $400,000 a year during his presidency, according to Forbes Magazine. Assuming these salaries reflect the amount of work required for the position, playing soccer or football must be more challenging than running an entire country.

Let's take a moment to think about what would happen if all sports teams simply disappeared from our country. While our country might mourn the entertainment loss, all would survive and find alternative methods to entertain themselves. Let's imagine what would happen if all doctors disappeared from our country. Hundreds of thousands of people would die. There would be nobody to save car crash victims or even to cure the common cold.

Professional athletes are highly overpaid. Compensation should be based on job importance, not entertainment. If vital, life-saving professions are not rewarded for the stress of their jobs, there may come a day when those jobs are much harder to fill. Pay the individuals who make a difference in the world.

-Kelsey O'Connor, Staff Writer
No:
"Athletes are paid millions of dollars to play a game" is a common argument people make for criticizing the annual salary of professional athletes. However, it is completely justified.

Lebron James of the National Basketball Association (NBA) takes home 30.96 million dollars a season. Tom Brady of the National Football League (NFL) nets a clean 27 million every year and Clayton Kershaw of Major League Baseball (MLB) accumulates 34.57 million each season, according to forbes.com.

This may seem like a drastic misuse of funds for an athlete who works less than ½ of the year, but behind the scenes a different picture is painted.

The Cleveland Cavaliers, the team that James leads, are worth a cool 1.1 billion dollars. The New England Patriots, the organization Brady heads, is worth an outstanding 2.6 billion dollars. And the Los Angeles Dodgers, the team that ace pitcher Kershaw throws for, is worth 2 billion dollars, according to cnbc.com.

The athletes who make up the rosters for these professional sporting franchises are directly responsible for how much the team is worth and how much everyone else in the organization draws in. If they do poorly, the team attracts less fans and less revenue. If they do well, that yields bigger television contracts, more merchandise sales and an organization that is ultimately worth more.

The average athlete in these organizations makes about 10-15 percent of what the top athletes I described earlier do, according to the Huffington Post. So it only makes sense that the top athletes make so much. It is structured like a run-of-the-mill business. The top performers earn drastically more than the individuals on the bottom of the totem pole.

Sports franchises are some of the wealthiest in the world. They take in revenue from a multitude of different platforms and are trendsetters in pop culture. Athletes aren't overpaid, they are just chess pieces in one of the highest-grossing industries in the world.

-Parker Reed, Sports Editor

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Yes: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an Army General with over 20 years of service makes approximately $192,864 a year. The 2014 median compensation for a General Surgeon was just under $395,456 a year. The men and women who run straight into fires, risking their lives to save others make only $46,870 per...

# data[].attributes.body
C- This article was made on March 8, 2017 so it is still a credible source.
R-The article does relate to my topic and it speaks on both sides of the argument.
A-This article was written by a student news paper in the University of Wisconsin.
A-This article does seem credible only because it was written by college students.
A-This article seems pretty accurate since it comes from a college and it points out both sides of the topic.
P-Both sides or the article are trying to persuade the reader to be on there side of the argument.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an Army General with over 20 years of service makes approximately $192,864 a year. The 2014 median compensation for a General Surgeon was just under $395,456 a year. The men and women who run straight into fires, risking their lives to save others make only $46,870 per year. So why are professional athletes being paid millions or even billions of dollars each year?

Sure, athletes are physically pushed to their limits day in and day out. Their performance directly affects the worth of the teams for which they play. These teams are huge organizations worth billions of dollars, but are they worth more than a human life?

We are paying athletes ridiculous amounts of money to physically perform on national television for public entertainment. Meanwhile, soldiers, firefighters and policemen perform physically to save the lives of others on a daily basis. Shouldn't these lives be worth more than entertainment?

Cristiano Ronaldo makes $56 million a year, Kobe Bryant made $250 million a year and Barack Obama made $400,000 a year during his presidency, according to Forbes Magazine. Assuming these salaries reflect the amount of work required for the position, playing soccer or football must be more challenging than running an entire country.

Let's take a moment to think about what would happen if all sports teams simply disappeared from our country. While our country might mourn the entertainment loss, all would survive and find alternative methods to entertain themselves. Let's imagine what would happen if all doctors disappeared from our country. Hundreds of thousands of people would die. There would be nobody to save car crash victims or even to cure the common cold.

Professional athletes are highly overpaid. Compensation should be based on job importance, not entertainment. If vital, life-saving professions are not rewarded for the stress of their jobs, there may come a day when those jobs are much harder to fill. Pay the individuals who make a difference in the world.

-Kelsey O'Connor, Staff Writer
No:
"Athletes are paid millions of dollars to play a game" is a common argument people make for criticizing the annual salary of professional athletes. However, it is completely justified.

Lebron James of the National Basketball Association (NBA) takes home 30.96 million dollars a season. Tom Brady of the National Football League (NFL) nets a clean 27 million every year and Clayton Kershaw of Major League Baseball (MLB) accumulates 34.57 million each season, according to forbes.com.

This may seem like a drastic misuse of funds for an athlete who works less than ½ of the year, but behind the scenes a different picture is painted.

The Cleveland Cavaliers, the team that James leads, are worth a cool 1.1 billion dollars. The New England Patriots, the organization Brady heads, is worth an outstanding 2.6 billion dollars. And the Los Angeles Dodgers, the team that ace pitcher Kershaw throws for, is worth 2 billion dollars, according to cnbc.com.

The athletes who make up the rosters for these professional sporting franchises are directly responsible for how much the team is worth and how much everyone else in the organization draws in. If they do poorly, the team attracts less fans and less revenue. If they do well, that yields bigger television contracts, more merchandise sales and an organization that is ultimately worth more.

The average athlete in these organizations makes about 10-15 percent of what the top athletes I described earlier do, according to the Huffington Post. So it only makes sense that the top athletes make so much. It is structured like a run-of-the-mill business. The top performers earn drastically more than the individuals on the bottom of the totem pole.

Sports franchises are some of the wealthiest in the world. They take in revenue from a multitude of different platforms and are trendsetters in pop culture. Athletes aren't overpaid, they are just chess pieces in one of the highest-grossing industries in the world.

-Parker Reed, Sports Editor

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Yes: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an Army General with over 20 years of service makes approximately $192,864 a year. The 2014 median compensation for a General Surgeon was just under $395,456 a year. The men and women who run straight into fires, risking their lives to save others make only $46,870 per...