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This picture was published January 24 2022 8:43 EST.
The publisher is Ricky O´Donnell.

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Athletes get paid millions for all there hard work. They use all the money the get to pay for there medical bills from there injuries and to pay for the rest of there life when there not playing. Published March 13 2019 by Phil

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This photo was published by upfront.scholastic.com on April 1 2019.
I could not find were it was published.

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The Harlem Globe Trotters are a family entertainment basketball team that are super funny and have good basketball skills. The Harlem Globe Trotters employees normally get paid around 73,000$ on average or 35$ a hour. I could not find when this was published or by who.

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C-This photo was posted EST December 29 2021.
R-This relates to my topic because Lebron James is a pro athlete that makes 41.18 Million USD for all of his hard work.
A- The people who posted this photo is usatoday.com.
A- This photo is for my claim that they put in a lot of work.
P- The purpose of this photo is to show they put in a lot of work.

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C- This was published December 30 2016.
R- This relates to my argument by explaining why athletes are overpaid or there not.
A- The people who posted this is All Def on youtube.
A- The video is for and against athletes are overpaid or not.
P- The purpose is to see real life people explain and express how they feel.

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Are Professional Athletes Overpaid? | All Def

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C- This information was posted or published July 30 2015.
R- This video relates to the topic by it has different sides both for and against my claim and these people explain there reasons for being for and against.
A- The publisher of this video is ¨TYT Sports¨ on Youtube.
A- This information is both for and against my claim by stating how they feel and the reasons why.
P- The purpose of this video is that it states both sides and why they feel that way.

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C- This article was posted on September 9 2008.
R- This relates to my claim by being for my topic and stating facts about why.
A- They person who posted this article is Dan Stein.
A- This is for my topic saying athletes are not overpaid.
P-The purpose of this article is to state why they feel pro athletes are not overpaid to support my claim.

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How many times have you heard a fan, friend, or a talking head complain about the excessive salaries being paid to professional athletes? Complaints about how no player is worth $25,000,000 a season or how a team with a payroll in excess of $100 million constantly permeate throughout sports talk radio and bar room discussions alike.

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C-This article was published March 8 2017.
R- This relates to my topic by being for and against my argument by stating facts and opinions about how they feel.
A- The poster is Parker Reed and Kelsey O´Connor from THE SPECTATOR.
A- This article is for and against my claim.
P- The purpose of this article to back up my claim.

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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

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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...

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C-This article was published April 13.
R- This article relates to my topic by supporting my claim that athletes are not overpaid.
A- The publisher is Michael Provvisionato.
A- This article is with my claim that athletes are not overpaid. In the text is says ¨It is clear athletes are not overpaid¨
P- The Purpose of the articles information is that it says athletes are not overpaid and that supports my claim.

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It is almost certain that at least one in your life, you have heard someone complain about how much professional athletes get paid. Yes, at first glance contracts such as Mike Trout's 12 year, $430 million or Lionel Messi's average annual salary around $84 million seem ridiculous. However, if you begin to deconstruct these salaries, keeping in mind the value that the athlete brings to the club, it is clear that athletes are not overpaid, and in many cases even underpaid.

According to Forbes, the Dallas Cowboys are the world's most valuable sports club with an annual operating income of $365 million and an overall valuation at roughly $5 billion. That net operating income includes the $143 million spent on player contracts by the team during the 2019 season, showing just how much of an impact superstars such as Ezekiel Elliott, with a base salary of $10.9 million and Dak Prescott, who made just a $2.1 million base salary in 2019, can have. During the 2018 season these players ranked fourth and ninth respectively in league wide jersey sales, bringing in significantly more revenue for the Cowboys and NFL in that way alone than their base salary compensates for. In addition to jersey sales, Elliott and Prescott, as well as other NFL superstars, bring in significantly more revenue for their teams through attracting TV viewers and increasing ticket sales for their clubs.

Comparatively, the NHL's Arizona Coyotes, who have been historically noncompetitive and lack superstars on their roster are the lowest valued team in the NHL and operated with a loss of $15 million during the 2018-2019 season. Some of the team's financial struggles can be attributed to their location in the non-traditional hockey market of Phoenix, however their lack of star power and poor record in 2018-2019 was the biggest factor in their financially unsuccessful campaign. During the season, they were rarely slotted for nationally-televised games, struggled to sell tickets, and did not have a player in the top 15 of league-wide jersey sales. According to hockey-reference.com, the team averaged a home attendance of only 14,596, or roughly 85% stadium capacity, ranking 28th out of the league's 31 teams.

Conversely, the St. Louis Blues, who also operate in a non-traditional hockey market, were able to lean on their star players to turn in a very successful 2018-19 campaign that culminated in a Stanley Cup championship and a 14% increase in team value, with revenues of $171 million and an operating income of $20 million, according to Forbes. All of this was achieved with their highest-paid player, Vladamir Tarasenko, making only $9.5 million. In terms of jersey sales, the team had two of the top 15 best selling players, Tarasenko (ranked eighth)and Jordan Binninton (ranked seventh), with the latter making only $4.55 million during the season. The value that St. Louis' strong roster of players added did not stop with jersey sales, as the team averaged a home attendance of 18,096, or 98.3% of arena capacity. Additionally, the team gained a significant amount of exposure and TV revenue through its nationally-televised championship run.

In 2018 one of the biggest soccer transfers of all time took place with Christiano Ronaldo leaving Spanish club Real Madrid for Italian side Juventus F.C. for $140 million USD. Ronaldo makes a base salary of $35 million USD, however accounting firm KPMG calculated that despite the massive transfer fee and salary, Juventus makes an additional $85 billion USD annually as a direct result of the acquisition. In addition to increased ticket revenues, television deals, and sponsorship agreements, which were included in the calculations, the firm also noted the immeasurable impacts on Juventus' global brand that Ronaldo and his 204 million instagram followers represent. Having the world's most famous athlete as a part of the club will allow it to expand and establish its brand globally through essentially free social media advertising.

In addition to all of the quantitative factors that represent the exponential value that athletes add to their clubs when compared to their salaries, there are also many qualitative factors that suggest athletes are not overpaid. Playing professional sports is incredibly difficult and statistically very unlikely. According to scholarshipstats.com, any given high school basketball player has a 1 in 1,860 chance of going pro, with 1 in 764 for baseball, 1 in 603 for football, and 1 in 835 for soccer. Like any profession, the more selective and difficult it is to get a job, the higher the compensation.

Additionally, by fulfilling their job duties, professional athletes are innately at a very high injury risk when compared to the average occupation. Not only can injuries have severely negative effects on pro athletes' lives, but they can potentially end the athletes' career and income stream. As is the case for almost all sources of risk, the higher the chance, the higher the compensation. This is certainly true for professional athletes.

While professional athletes are heavily compensated for their profession when compared to an average salary, they are certainly not overcompensated based on the value that they add for their respective clubs, the difficulty of making it pro, and injury risk that they face.

Works Cited

As.com. "KPMG Estimates Ronaldo's Huge Financial Impact for Juventus." AS.com, Diario AS, 23 July 2018, en.as.com/en/2018/07/23/football/1532375027_664379.html.

Stein, Dan. "Why Pro Athletes Aren't Paid Too Much." Bleacher Report, Bleacher Report, 3 Oct. 2017, bleacherreport.com/articles/55644-why-pro-athletes-arent-paid-too-much.

Warner, Ralph. "The Top 10 Selling Jerseys of 2018." NFL.com, National Football League, 3 Jan. 2019, www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001007569/article/the-top-10-selling-jerseys-of-2018.

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It is almost certain that at least one in your life, you have heard someone complain about how much professional athletes get paid. Yes, at first glance contracts such as Mike Trout's 12 year, $430 million or Lionel Messi's average annual salary around $84 million seem ridiculous.

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C- This information was posted March 4 2012.
R- This information relates to my topic by the against argument. This is a article that is against Pro Athletes getting paid the amount there paid now.
A- The publisher to this article ¨ Two sides to every coin: Are Professional Athletes Overpaid.¨ is The Doctor Chris Mueller
A- This information is against my claim stating Athletes are overpaid.
P- The purpose of this information is that its against my argument and the reader can get more than one opinion and facts about each side.

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Two Sides to Every Coin: Are Professional Athletes Overpaid?

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Jimmy Connors plays two tennis matches and winds up with $850,000, and Muhammad Ali fights one bout and winds up with five million bucks...

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C- This article was posted October 1 2021.
R- This relates to my topic by being against pro athletes getting paid as much as they do.
A- The article publisher is ¨THE STATE TIMES¨ by Andrew Dawson.
A- This article is against my argument that pro athletes are overpaid.
P- The purpose of this article is to explain the other side of the argument.

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Andrew Dawson, Sports Editor |

If you are someone who believes professional athletes are overpaid, then this is the article for you. While athletes do possess a unique skill set that many of us don't have, there is no question they are being overpaid to play sports that we all grew up playing as children. You don't agree? Then let's look at some of the biggest contracts in sports around the world.

The average annual salary for MLB players in 2021 is 4.17 million dollars. According to ESPN, contract salaries have been down 4.8 percent since the 2019 season though we continue to see record-breaking contracts every single season. The biggest contract in the MLB is held by Mookie Betts, right fielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers signed Betts after his MVP season back in 2020, awarding him with a 12-year deal worth 365 million dollars. Betts is on track to make 27 million dollars every season for the next 12 years. Another big contract in the MLB is held by Mike Trout, center fielder for the Los Angeles Angels. Trout is considered one of the best baseball players in the history of the MLB, signing a 10-year deal worth 360 million dollars back in 2019. Since his contract extension, Trout has missed 27 percent of Angels games due to injuries, including missing more than half of the shortened 2020 season.

The NFL continues to increase with popularity every year and has become the most watched sport in the United States of America. The increase in revenue has allowed teams to pay their best players an insane amount of money. A great example is the Kansas City Chiefs signing their star quarterback Patrick Mahomes to a 10-year deal worth 503 million dollars. While Mahomes is quickly becoming one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history, the Chiefs currently are in last place of their division with a 1-2 record. Should a football player be making half a billion dollars to have a losing record? Especially when his only job is to throw a football 30 times a game?

So, let's put this into perspective. Some of the highest paid athletes are making more than 30 million dollars a year to play a sport, but healthcare workers who are trying to save lives during the COVID-19 pandemic are only making 56 thousand dollars. Not only does the level of importance between these two jobs not compare, neither do their wages.

As a former athlete, I understand the amount of time, effort, and dedication these players put forth not only during their season but in the off-season as well. While playing their sport at the highest level, they are entertaining millions of people across the world. However, they shouldn't be getting a quarter of a billion-dollar contract for playing a sport that doesn't even span the entire year. I believe these organizations must create a cap on individual contracts before it's too late. If this increase in professional athletes' salaries continues, we will see a billion-dollar contract in our lifetime, while healthcare workers are risking their own lives to save others. Not only are these contracts disproportional, but they're also not fair.

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Andrew Dawson, Sports Editor | If you are someone who believes professional athletes are overpaid, then this is the article for you. While athletes do possess a unique skill set that many of us don...