By Sports Enthusiast and Blogger Holden Hartle
In short, no. People like to say, “How can athletes get paid millions of dollars just to play a game? It’s unfair to the rest of the working class who actually has to work for their next paycheck.” I understand this hypothetical person’s argument. In its simplest, these athletes are getting paid ridiculous amounts of money to play a child’s game. But, I do have some problems with this hypothetical person’s argument.
Consider this. The NBA earns a total of $7.37 billion per year. How the NBA determines the salary cap (it’s actually very complicated so this is the “For Dummies” version) is they take the total NBA revenue, halve it, then divide it by thirty because there are thirty teams in the NBA. After the other math that goes into it, you get just over $100 million per team. The salary cap is how much money a team is allowed to spend on players’ contracts. So, as the NBA earns more revenue, the teams can spend more money on contracts. But imagine if teams were given less of a percentage of the NBA’s revenue. That means that players would get paid less but that money has to go somewhere. Instead, it would go to people like Adam Silver, who is currently commissioner of the NBA. It seems fairer that the players are getting 50% of the NBA’s revenue, rather than Adam Silver have all of it to himself.
Furthermore, consider the fact that each NBA player has some amount of influence. Sure someone like Antonio Blakeney will have less influence than LeBron James, but there are still people that will look to Blakeney as a role model. And though maybe this influence isn’t worth millions of dollars, it is at least worth something.
Personally, I don’t think that NBA players should be paid less. I think that they are paid a fair percentage of the NBA’s revenue and that it would be unfair if they were paid a lesser percentage. Though, yes, in its simplest, they are playing a child’s game, but consider the fact that they are playing it at the highest level in the entire world, and the fact that each NBA player has some influence over some group of people.
This has been Part 2 of Holden Rants About a Topic That Isn’t Really Relevant But is Still Kind of Interesting.
Editor: A.J. Patencio
The argument of inequity within the NBA is frivolous. Let’s look at equity beyond the confines of the NBA, or the Entertainment Industry, or any billion dollar corporation! Consider the equity of what our Constitution calls “the general welfare” of the United States…or global welfare for that matter. Solve the problem of radically absurd distribution of wealth which allows few to have excessive abundance and masses to lack food water housing and health care. That’s where the the true crisis of inequity lies.