Sports have become a way of life to some people around the world; it is a way to connect people universally. Some youth spend all their money to watch their favorite sports, others consider athletes as their role model in life. Athletes work hard to make themselves the best role model they could be for those young people. Sports were created for people to have fun. Nowadays, it is a competitive way to gain money. There is no suspicion that lately there has been a global growth in sports, causing a demand in professional athletes for international teams. Yearly, sports are taking over the television with competitions, Olympics and commercials in a variety of kinds and different continents. The prizes and organization of such competitions require millions of dollars carried by sponsors, who gain and lose a lot. These competitions require intensely talented players and athletes to be part of, and since it is very picky internationally to find the best team players to represent the country, the wage payments for these athletes are very high, even more than engineers and businessmen sometimes. Not just that, but players are also bought for a price to join the team which is even extremely expensive. Neymar for example, is a Paris-Saint German soccer player recently, was bought for 222 million Euros from FC Barcelona (Laurens). This arises questions and arguments by lots of individuals and critics about the reasons and purposes of such payments, and whether or not athletes deserve those payments. Some people are with and agreeing to these payments believing that it is fair enough, including myself, and that is because athletes put their lives at risk of life chronic injuries when their career is short until mid-thirties, the money they give back to their teams and the media expectations including privacy struggles they face like other celebrities. On the other hand, others believe it is a waste of money when these athletes are only ‘playing.’ and should be paid normally like any other job in the planet. Determining whether athletes deserve the amount of money they are being paid or not has taken a huge amount of space in people’s discussion in the last decade since sports has taken a huge amounts of space in people’s life.

Some people think that athletes deserve the gigantic amounts of money they are being paid, and some think they are even underpaid (Faust). Those people have their reasons to support this point of view. First of all, Athletes deserve the amount of money they are being paid since small injuries could ruin their whole future. Athletes career mostly is very short until mid-thirties, injuries can make it even shorter, that make their high wages reasonable. For instance, athletes worked hard to make the reputation of their countries at the top, and while preparing for the Olympics; a chronic injury ruined their whole preparations. Those athletes fought to make their countries at the summit but the injury stopped them from doing that. That makes those athletes deserve the money they are being paid since otherwise, their and their families’ lives will be a nightmare because of the very little amount of money they could live with the rest of their lives. Moreover, athletes’ lives are in more risks of injuries and short careers. Athletes job are mostly focused on body abilities and this makes them have shorter careers than other jobs. Athletes’ bodies become weak after their careers because of the injuries and the hard work they put to achieve (Resnick). To make the situation clear, athletes getting the same wage as an engineer will have a really tough life. This is because athletes’ bodies suffer in the mid thirties, while engineer can still perform until their fifty or even sixty years old. As a result, those athletes who may have changed the life and motivates many young people might have a really hard times living their lives if they didn’t find themselves some other jobs. The job opportunities will be limited because their bodies are weak, and most of the athletes have just high school certificate. To sum up, athletes bodies become very weak after they retire and may become in need for some surgeries, and that make them deserve the amount of money they are being paid until their nearly mid-thirties when they retire.

Second of all, athletes deserve the amount of money they are being paid because the money they are being paid could be reflected doubles or even more to their teams. Teams get doubles of what they pay to their athletes from the tickets they sell, marketing and advertising. Athletes help their teams financially through tickets and jerseys that sports fans buy. Sports fans spend huge amounts of money in order just to watch their favorite player. For example, tickets from Real Madrid vs. Barcelona soccer game in Miami was sold out even though the prices were not cheap. People came from different states just to watch those popular two teams (Lima). This gives a conclusion that even though soccer is not the most popular sport in the U.S, people were very excited to watch the best players in the world. This resulted into fully booked hotel as well. Athletes are also very beneficial through marketing and advertising. The NFL, which is the American football league in the U.S, makes billions of dollars from advertising and sponsorships. For example, the NFL signed a contract with Microsoft Company for more than 400 million dollars (Ejiochi). This can give us a conclusion that sports, which athletes are major part of, make huge amounts of money from signing contracts and advertising with very well known companies. Those contracts would not be signed if the competition in the fields of sports were not so challenging and interesting. Finally, Athletes deserve to be paid huge amounts of money because their competition could lead into many more than just challenges between players.

Third of all, Athletes deserve to be paid huge amounts of money because of the privacy problems they face after going through sports. Athletes’ life becomes very close to media and they could be filmed for doing nearly anything, and that could include their families as well. According to an academic journal with a title of “ A Comparative Study Of Earnings Profiles.”  Written by Zimmer, Martha Hill, and Michael Zimmer, athletes’ wages are very low comparing to other entertainers and celebrities. This is actually not fair to athletes since athletes are always under pressure of media and media are going into athletes private lives (Brown). Athletes should be considered celebrities since they go in the same procedure that celebrities and actors go through; and this gives them the rights to get the same high wages that celebrities get and maybe even higher because of many other reasons. In addition, athletes should deal with every day’s media interruptions. This is one of the reasons on why athletes deserve to get high wages. Athletes try to escape media and live the best life with their families as they could. Media go after athletes in their practice, in their way home and even with their families. Media channels are always looking for exclusive news and this could be done by following athletes and knowing what they do in daily basis. They always are looking for some exclusive pictures even with their younger kids. This situation may seem pretty annoying to some players since they join the field of sports because they want to compete and not for their kids and families to be ‘stalked’. To sum up, privacy is very important in life. Athletes are struggling with media since they are putting them always under pressure and stressing them out, and this may affect their performance. Athletes deserve high wages like other celebrities because they live similar lives and this could be their motivation to kill the media stress out.

Nevertheless, some people and other critics claim that athletes don’t deserve the amount of money they are being paid. Those people have their own explanations that made them stand against athletes getting high wages. Firstly, those people claims that athletes should not be paid high wages stating that athletes are just ‘playing’. Athletes are doing what everyone can do in life which is playing and they should not be paid that much. Athletes are just going after some balls, hitting or kicking them and even jumping or running; which anyone can do according to them. They should not be paid higher than a guy in the military who fought for his place, or even engineers or doctors who worked hard and studied to be where they are. This makes them do not deserve the millions they are being paid. Some people put their life not just under the risk of injuries, but even more and they deserve the millions that athletes get. Secondly, the high amounts of money that athletes get should be spent in better ways. For example, the millions of dollars that athletes get should be reduced and this amount should be given for other uses like building hospitals, doing some researches and helping homeless people to get homes. It could be spent on stuff that can help the society. This step could help the society by reducing diseases and crimes because everybody in the society is given their own rights and as a result there will be nobody in need of something in the society. Making everybody have what they need means a safe community. The third reason of why athletes are overpaid is that they have no benefit on the society. Athletes, unlike other jobs, don’t save lives, educate people or even contribute in useful act in the society. All what athletes are doing is making people lose their money by watching them, and get paid highly for doing what everybody can do. To sum up, there are always two parts of any argument. Some people claim that athletes are overpaid because they think there are some people in other jobs who deserve this money much more.

Even though some people claim that athletes are overpaid and they have some good reasons, those reasons could have some better solutions and are not necessarily 100% right. There could be some other suggestions and solutions rather that just saying that athletes’ wages should be reduced because they are the most overpaid people in the society because this might sound unfair to some athletes. First of all, Athletes are not just playing. They are considered as a role model for many young people. Young people spend their times watching those athletes. It clear that sports are healthy for the body and could prevent them from having some diseases. It is better for kids to imitate and have athletes as their own role model because this could build a healthy community. In addition, athletes do not just play; they work very hard to make you enjoy what you watch. According to a YouTube video published by FourFourTwo, which is a sport related magazine, this video views some interviews with famous people. In the video, those people talked about how Cristiano Ronaldo, a Portuguese soccer player, worked hard to reach what he is right now (FourFourTwo). To analyze, working hard athletes should be given high wages since they reached a place where not any person can reach. Some people also claim that the huge amounts of money that the athletes are paid could be spent in better ways rather that just giving it to one person. That is actually sounds right, but sports nowadays is very common and improving in the planet. Paying those athletes huge amounts of money will actually help the country or the team. Sports events give huge outcomes to countries and teams.  Selling games Tickets, increasing tourism and selling jerseys are some of the many ways that athletes have a great relation to. As a result, the enormous amounts of money that athletes earn is nothing compared to what they give back to their countries or teams, the money they give back could be spent in spreading goods by building hospitals and helping homeless people, and that could help having an improved healthy community. This way could also have better outcomes than just reducing athletes’ wages. In addition, some people claim that athlete have no benefit on the society. Athletes actually have a great benefit on the society. Besides being the great role model to the new generation, athletes plays an important role putting their countries name in sports at the summit, they also could help in the cultural diversity, which may help increase tourism through making people love the country the certain athlete is from. This could be done by choosing the right athletes to represent the country and preparing others to do so; and never think about the money athletes are being paid. Even though there are some good reasons to support the point that athletes are overpaid, there are solutions and suggestions to make the money an athlete get just a number. Those solutions could even have more productive results

In conclusion, sports’ advancements on the universe these days have an effective role in the life of individuals around the world. Athletes give back doubles or even more of what they originally get from their teams. Some people claim that athletes are overpaid stating some reasonable facts. The fact that athletes are overpaid could be changed easily. Teams should start teaching athletes on how to be successful to get the best from them and to have a very successful new generation. Nowadays, sports are what people are looking for, so having successful conscious athletes will give amazing results to the community. As a result, those results that athletes could help achieve will make athletes wages nothing compared to what they give back to their teams. At the end, people’s opinions differ depending on the society they were raised from. It is true that athletes get very high wages nowadays, but they give out much more.
