What if I told you that an average baseball player makes about twelve times as much as the average doctor? Would it bother you if the lowest paid football player on the Chicago Bears makes nearly twice the amount of a lawyer with 11 years of experience or more (Mueller)? Welcome to the reality of sports, where athletes get paid an extensive amount of money to score a touchdown or hit a homerun. The idea of athletes getting paid millions upon millions of dollars per year is baffling. Regarding the economic side of sports, many different topics should be considered.  Although some believe the athletes deserve every penny they make, many believe their value is not worth this kind of money. Athletes have the ability to puppet an organization. In other words, athletes are pulling the strings of the organizations in some ways, such as controlling how much money they make, or having an influence on the team’s decisions. This could be front office decisions, or decisions being made with an individual player.  

Often times, professional organizations contain a superstar player who is known as the face of the franchise. This player has the ability to change the course of the franchise, and set the tone of the organization. Going along with this idea, Garner et al., sports economist, claim that “In the market for sports, the player is often seen to be in power and key driver to performance.” Their theory of these players having power is useful because it sheds light on the fact that athletes may abuse this power that they have. The authors provide the example of LeBron James being the cause of Head Coach David Blatt being fired, simply because Blatt and James did not have the best relationship. The franchise acted upon this solely for the morale of one player, and that player being the face of the franchise. Garner and others also make the point that athletes can control how much they are paid based upon how well they perform. If the athletes produce stealthy numbers, the franchise does not have a choice but to pay the athlete what he or she desires. If the franchise decides not to pay the athlete, the athlete can simply leave and find another organization to play for. 

In many cases, the athletes perform for a certain amount of time while they are young, they get paid, and suddenly they start to underperform. This is evident in baseball, because baseball is strictly guaranteed money. Once the athlete signs the contract he is going to obtain that money in the future no matter what unfolds. Joel Radwanski, a sports writer, provides examples of MLB players who did well, and then fell off after their pay day. One example of this is former New York Yankees star Mark Teixeira. In 2016 Teixeira was getting paid 23 million dollars, and he missed most of the season with injuries. This contract was given to him in 2009, and he missed at least 30 games every year from 2011-2016 (Radwanski). He failed to put up the numbers for his organization, but at the end of the day he still got paid.  Other examples of these MLB players are Nick Swisher, Pablo Sandoval, Melvin Upton, and countless more. These athletes were the star of their franchise until their pay day came, and all this money was flowing into them for their low productivity. 

One widely asked question is, where does all this money come from? Well, professional sports have gained popularity over the years. The organizations benefit from this popularity as they bring in more money each year. “In North America professional sports leagues operate as legal monopolies with few direct substitutes” (Troilo et al.).  The argument these sports economists make is valuable because in the professional sports world, the athletes are very unique. They are all special at what they do, and there is nothing to replace that value that professional sports, like the NFL and MLB, hold. Analytics is any type of data or technology that helps maximize profit. The authors argue that analytics should be used to compensate for increasing demand within the sports industry. They claim, “these demands include the rising franchise debt payments, construction of new stadia, and increasing player salaries already mentioned.” (Troilo et al.).  Their theory of the growth of analytics is useful because consumer’s demands for the sports world are growing higher as time goes on. This cause grows onto the athletes, and the athletes demand more as well. For example, if a team is playing in an old, run down stadium, fans of that team are going to demand a new stadium so they will come watch the games. This new stadium would bring excitement to that team’s city. To continue the excitement the team is going to have to pay better-than-average athletes to come play for their team. The athletes have the power to negotiate because of the fact that the team is searching for that specific player. It is a chain of events that starts from a major topic, and dims down to single athletes. Even though these single athletes are a small part in the picture, they play a big role in the economic swing of a team. These analytics are useful because the teams could maximize profit, and bring in as much talent as possible. 

Considering that athletes hold some power in their organization, some question why they truly play the game when they get to the professional level. Do they play for fun? Do they play to win? They may just be playing for the money. Stefan Szymanski, the author of “Playbooks and Checkbooks”, firmly believes that true reason for playing sports has been lost. He asserts, “Modern Sport grew first and foremost out of sociability. Even today, there are many professional sportsmen from the past who bemoan the loss of sociability in sport caused by the growing importance of money” (181). Szymanski’s thought is insightful about how the game is not played for mere fun. The athletes have to have their financial demands met before they step out on the field. A recent example of this was Le’Veon Bell, a running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers. During the preseason, he was not attending summer camp or the team’s practices. He missed most of the preseason games because of this hold out. The cause of this was because Bell did not like his current contract and he wanted the organization to restructure it to meet his demands. Bell did not care about how his teammates felt, how the team was preparing without him, and he forgot about having fun with the game. 

Although these professional athletes seem greedy, some believe they deserve the insurmountable paychecks. Athletes have to deal with unexpected curveballs throughout life. This could be a career ending injury, the physical toll on the body, the fact that their career can only last a few years, and an uncertain future after they retire from the sport. “With most athletes putting their bodies through the ringer each and every time they play, it is likely that at some point they will incur some kind of high-cost medical bill” (Mueller). The Bleacher Report writer is right that injuries are expensive and that athletes are most likely going to get injured, but he fails to account for the team doctors that are always provided. The athletes may not have to pay for every injury that comes along with their careers. If athletes do have to cover for injuries, it will cost them only but a few paychecks. Another point made by Mueller is that athletes can be of inspiration. This inspiration can spread from young athletes, to grown adults with everyday jobs. “Many people get inspired by athletes and end up doing great things on their own, and inspiration is not something which can be priced and stocked at Wal-Mart next to the soda” (Mueller). He suggests that being inspired can be a priceless action. It can allow greater things in life that you could not do before. The fans show this passion in the team, and in their favorite athletes. He believes that the price organizations pay for these athletes is worth it for these reasons.  

Along with Mueller’s beliefs, the NFL also supports the high-end value of its athletes. This could be for many different reasons. One could be regarding the NFL T.V. ratings in the 2016 season. According to Matthew Futterman and Andrew Beaton, writers for the Wall Street Journal,“ Average viewership per game fell 8% overall.” This is interesting because the NFL has been the most watched professional sport in America for a long time. Where the players come in is that the organizations are paying them millions of dollars, but not as many people are supporting the league. This means that the league is losing money, and in an overall swing, the players will begin to lose money. Regarding this, the NFL had a plan to reshape the whole 2017 NFL season. “The schedule is packed with attractive games in prime-time slots, especially in September and October, to get fans hooked early.” (Futterman and Beaton).  This is important because the NFL needs to increase the ratings so that the league can keep the organizations and its players happy. Futterman and Beaton also observe “On the field, penalties for ​innocuous ​touchdown celebrations—moments tailor-made for viral videos—were done away with.” The significance of this is that the players love to be involved in celebrations after scoring, and the fans love seeing it. The NFL did away with these celebrations because they saw it as unprofessional, but the players would do them anyways and would get fined for it. Now the NFL has brought back the celebrations, not only to appease the fans, but also the players. 

Going along with the idea of these NFL ratings comes the idea of economic value. Economic value is what a person brings to the world of work. Dave Ramsey, a professional businessman, brings a valid point about an NFL player’s economic value. He emphasizes in a video on YouTube that “The NFL team could not pay them that ninety million dollars, if they are not making more than ninety million as a result of that guy throwing it down that field successfully.”  He is right that some NFL players do bring a great amount of value to a team, but seems more on dubious ground when he claims that people who think they make too much money are “ignorant.” Aside from this, the idea of how the athlete got to this high point in an organization can be observed. Leading up to the professional leagues, the road an athlete takes could be political. In other words, an athlete may already have a road paved for them to get there. Thomas Gift, a political science professor, claims that “Many successful athletes are themselves the children of athletes, and parental wealth today buys access to sports camps, personal trainers, psychologists, and a wealth of other resources that bode well for athletic prowess.” Some examples of these athletes are Ken Griffey Jr., Peyton and Eli Manning, Prince Fielder, Shane Larkin, and many more. All of these present-day athletes had fathers that played in the professional leagues before them, and they had an advantage in getting their children to the pros. Most of these athletes ended up at the top of their respected franchise, and were able to land a good paycheck. This leads back to the idea that some athletes are able to manipulate their franchise in a certain way regarding money. The reason behind this is because the organizations realized that these athletes had father’s that went through the game before them. This tends to lead to a more respectful view of them because of that. Gift makes another interesting point that sports are not viewed heavily from an economic side. “One answer is that fans see athletic achievements more as a function of earned success.” (Gift).  Meaning that fans can forget the political/economical side of the sports world. 

The economic world of sports is one that is often forgot about. The idea that athletes can work an organization and be greedy with contracts can easily escape the mind. Some professionals are humbler about it than others, and that is why the idea surpasses. Other athletes are blatant that they want their money and that they deserve it. Often times this can be seen in the NFL when players “hold out” until their contract gets restructured. The athlete manipulates the franchise to believe that if the organization does not pay them, then there are always new teams to play for. Although some athletes provide inspiration to many people worldwide, most fans do not see the behind the scenes action. Because of this the athletes can slip under the radar and control a more powerful role in an organization than any fan will ever be able to notice. 
