they should be paid less because the system doesn't need to pay them that much.
What mechanism would you use to lower their pay?
If baseball player salaries are capped at (I don't know the number, say $150k), there will still be millions of athletes that will pursue the job.
There aren't millions, or even thousands, probably not hundreds, of people with the talent to play at the highest level. There are millions, maybe many millions of people who can play decent baseball (or football, or basketball), and thousands who can play extraordinarily well) well, but only few who would legitimately rank among the very best. Teams bid on that scarce commodity. And you can't make up the difference by hiring 1000 players with AA potential, as only so many players can play at the same time.
Winning helps bring in money, better players help you win.
In athletics, there could perhaps be price controls on events
Price controls are almost always a bad idea. Often bad morally and practically. The amount of justification required to get me to support price controls (meaning government imposed price floors and/or ceilings, not just careful budgeting of expenses) in any situation, would have to be staggering.
something under monopoly laws since most people have one team to support in their area
There are often multiple teams, just usually one team in a particular league. You might have a pro team, and a AA team, and maybe a college team. How you define a monopoly depends on how you define the market. If you mean one team in a particular league, or one pro team playing at the highest level in a particular sport, well then yes, you often have only one team, but frequently one team per market is all that can be supported. (and a few of the larger markets do have more then one team). If this "monopoly" (or its league) tried to stop a competitive league using illegal tactics it could face legal punishment, but there isn't anything illegal about being a monopoly. |
