Because it shows how the players salaries aren't really subsidized. I don't think that its legitimate to use the excuse that there is some government subsidy somewhere, to give the subsidizer control over that money and what can be done with it forever.
Tim, you are known to say some silly things but this one is over top.....and you have said it several times. You think about what you wrote up above and then come back and tell me why it's BS.
It isn't BS at all.
In any case remove all the subsidies and the superstars will still make massive salaries.
How do you know that?
We where talking about A-Rod's salary. The current Yankee stadium wasn't built with state aid (although there probably was state aid for its renovation). The new Yankee stadium will receive subsidies, but there where no solid plans for it when the Yankee's decided to pick up A-Rod.
The Yankees have over $300mil in revenue. If they had to pay back the state or local assistance in the renovation of the old stadium and forgo the planned new stadium they would hardly be forced to slash salaries.
Other teams don't make quite as much, but there is a lot of money flowing in to professional sports. Sure stadium subsidies have an indirect effect of helping to push up players salaries but the top players would still have 7 or 8 figure per year contracts and 8 or 9 figure total contracts.
The owners pay for the building of the stadiums.
"That would be good, but it wouldn't change the owners control of the sport."
It would sure cut down on the size of the salaries.......that is my goal.
It would probably cut down on future growth. I doubt it would cause current salaries to be slashed (even as the contracts end and players become free agents).
Look up the AFL, the AAFC, the American and National Leagues, the ABA.
Those mergers were allowed at a different time in this country. They wouldn't happen now.....people have gotten too savvy.
If the leagues are totally unsuccessfully, they just disappear and don't provide competition. If they are successful, a lot of people would like them to merge. They would like to see the teams compete against each other. At first the AFL and NFL didn't merger but the champions of each league played a game to determine an overall champion. Most people would want that (if the new league was considered close to being as good as the NFL), and once you get that there will be a lot of pressure for merger. Even without something like the Superbowl I don't think there would be a lot of opposition to a merger. Clearly you would oppose it, but many would care, and quite a few would be for it.
And if you get a league that doesn't merge, you have more teams competing for a limited resource (top players) bidding up prices even more. This happened with the AFL (witch later merged with the NFL) and the USFL (which didn't). (The Arena league and the XFL, and the Canadian league didn't/don't have the same effect because they weren't trying to compete head on for the top players)
How many people have made it big from American Idol?
Most of them are making a nice living now..
Most of them? No, many of them get kicked out in the first show. If you mean most of the winners, or most of the top few contestants each year, sure most of them are doing ok, but that's still just a very few.
My point is that I suspect there are a lot more star athletes out there then we have been led to believe.
My point is that your almost certainly wrong, and American Idol doesn't support your case. You would need hundreds or thousands of professional caliber players, not just a few. And you would need dozens to hundreds of top players. The current league's are already short of things like top pitching or top QBs, with about 30 teams per league. Add another 15 to 30 teams and the competition will increase those high salaries that you hate so much. Look at the bidding wars for top free agents. Now add another league, and maybe twice the teams bidding for the player, and each team knows that someone that good is in very short supply...
I suspect there are number of athletes that are overlooked. And the greater the supply, the lower the salaries........sports would not be the exclusive club it is now.
Sure more teams would mean more people playing, and some of them would emerge as stars, but there is absolutely no good reason to think that doubling the demand (with two leagues) or even more (if you want multiple competing leagues) would result in an increase of supply even equal to, let alone beyond the increase in demand.
Its not as if players don't get a chance to be evaluated at lower levels. There are hundreds of minor/lesser league and college teams for players to show their talent. Baseball in particular has a developed system, but other sports give many thousands of players some chance to show they have what it takes as well. Even if these lower level teams didn't exist, double the number of top level teams and you only double the number of the people your looking at, its not like you would vastly increase the pool of candidates. And typically doubling the pool of candidates doesn't double the number of super stars.
Do you really think its reasonable to pay someone $20 million to play a game and the president of the US only $400K?
Its very reasonable if the investment of $20 million (say Derek Jeter's salary) helps to get a return of greater then $20mil. Some top guys are busts, in which case the contract, with the benefit of hindsight doesn't look so reasonable, but sports is hardly the only industry that sometimes makes bad investments.
As for the presidents salary, not only do you ignore the huge benefits, but more importantly, its irrelevant. The president's salary has no real connection to the player's salary, and there isn't any good reason for them to be connected.
If paying presidents more caused better candidates to run, then it would be worth it. (Of course better candidates in politics is less clear then it is in sports), but that's a political decision not an investment decision.
What I think is unreasonable is politically/governmentally deciding private salaries. |
