Why Are Professional Athletes Overpaid

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Wouldn’t it be great if you get paid millions by simply playing a game? Some professional athletes make millions of dollars in one season by doing so. A professional athlete is someone who is paid to play a sport. Floyd Mayweather Jr., a professional boxer, is the most paid athlete in the world. He has a net worth is $295 million and has a salary income of $50 million. It is valid that many athletes are paid enormously for a game that if played within a matter of minutes, but these professional athletes are worth what they are paid for. Since athletes require countless hours of training and practice, play for a few years, and suffer injuries and illnesses, it seems sensible that athletes are not overpaid. Many people believe that athletes are…show more content…
Peter Ford, author of A Career in Professional Sports, acknowledges this statement. He wrote, “The span of an athlete’s career is about 7 to 12 years, depending on the sport and performance.” If professional athletes only play for a few years, it seems reasonable to give them a higher salary. When they retire from sports, they will need plenty of money to support them for the rest of their lives. Bearing in mind the short career of a professional athlete, they earn their lifetime salary within a few years. Although athletes play for a few years, there are limited spots to become a professional athlete. Ford states, “With such limited numbers of available professional athlete jobs, the chances of working as a paid athlete are small.” In the world of sports, only three percent of college athletes play professionally. This means all the other athletes are being employed in a different line of work. With such a small number of people playing professional, they are not playing as many years as the rest of the population. Professional sports are so challenging that after a while, many professional athletes are impotent to play. Professional athletes get traded by newer and fresher players. Athletes do not play for many years, and they need to be able to have enough money to retire

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