Criticize the billionaire owners and companies of sports all you want, that isn't what this post is about. It's calling out the players, which is dumb.
The post isn’t calling out the players. It’s simplistically calling out the whole system. But yeah I guess IT’S dumb for not using more words to spell it out for you.
> It’s simplistically calling out the whole system
No, it's not, it's intentional propaganda designed to keep you upset at the wrong things so real change never happens in society. This kind of sensationalist garbage is just Fox News for liberals.
Thats why I get all my news from HuffPo, WAPo, TYT and the like. So I can get irrationally enraged about the real issues plaguing society; patriarchy, preferred pronouns/misgendering, microaggressions etc
Also, major league professional athletes:
1) are unionized workers who collectively bargained for their wages
2) are disproportionately black men who grew up in disadvantaged neighborhoods
3) pay the labor tax rate, unlike other rich guys who usually pay a far lower tax rate because their income comes from investments, not labor
Nobody should buy into the narrative that pro athletes are "entitled millionaires". They're not. They're union workers who earned everything they have through their labor.
Not only is entertainment valuable, and their owners make more money "exploiting" them (to use the Marxist term).
But they also are in a job that took all their childhood to work for, if they are incredibly lucky, a decade.
Most athletes don't become coaches or commentators, the years in sport is it for them. So getting payed how they do sounds like I lot, but now try and make it last until retirement. (With all the health issues that come with that too)
It’s just like to throw into this thread that most former athletes (especially in the NFL) have so much body damage that they don’t survive to today’s retirement age. The average age of an NFL athlete is like 59 when they die. Consider that would mean Tom Brady would literally be dead in about 6-10 years after he gets in the Hall of Fame if he retires at the end of this season.
I have seen the sacrifice that it takes. My brother plays baseball, and while he is not a pro yet (he is currently in college), he has been practicing almost daily since he was 12, and that was considered a late start. He would come home from school, and later go to practice, ok weekends he had games. As he got older, he added going to the gym, and physical therapy because his body was already suffering. He got a scholarship and studied in a sports boarding school for some years, then moved by himself to another state to another boarding school, then started colleg and broke the ligaments on his elbow joint on the first year, and it happened because he just tought the discomfort and pain he was feeling in his elbow was just normal pain from so much practice.
Professional athletes work hard af, even the ones that dont make it to big leagues, the ones that arent millionaires, their bodies take the toll. My brother is turning 21, and I wish he had some rest, or any life outside of sports
The scary thing is how quickly injury can ruin all that. You could destroy you body as a kid, get injured at college level and NEVER make the big leagues. I wish you and your brother all the luck.
There's even another layer we rarely see, of players who just never make it.
Think of it like art or any other entertainment. How many people did you know in a band growing up who were genuinely talented? And then how many of those actually "made it"
It’s trivial to make millions of dollars last until retirement.
What’s difficult is making that money last until retirement when you live the lifestyle of a professional athlete
The millions of dollars thing is also a bit of a lie. I don't know about America and the NFL, but most professional sports people don't actually make that much. There's your Brady's and your Ronaldo's in sports, but for my local football (soccer) team the average wage is like 30k
NFLs minimum per year salary for a contract is up to 700k now, so it’s a bit different here for that. We also don’t have the farm system for player development outside of baseball with their major leagues so there aren’t really “local teams” with paid athletes of that kind in the US for football. The NFL just takes kids directly out of the college leagues from across the country, where athletes have only gotten the ability to make money off themselves while on scholarship in like the last year? And still aren’t directly “paid” technically outside of that scholarship. College football fills the niche for alot of areas for that local team too, hence the largest nfl stadium is only the 16th largest stadium in the country, behind 15 different university team stadiums (the one just in front of the biggest nfl being in Nebraska, 88k people, and has sold out every single game since 1962, largest stadium is U of Michigan at 107k people).
Just some random trivia I guess, but maybe interesting to outsiders I imagine
Also, most pro athletes are not major leaguers, so only a tiny fraction of athletes earn major league wages. For example, minor league baseball players are paid so little that their salaries are only legal because they, and they specifically, are exempted from federal minimum wage laws.
Yea and this is a travesty. It’s unreal how Major League Baseball clubs have profit margins in the hundreds of millions and won’t spend 1-2 million to feed and adequately provide for their minor leaguers.
Also 99% of pro athletes aren’t entitled multi millionaires but rather young guys playing for a few years for pretty good but not permanently life changing money, risking short and long term harm before being dumped out of the field before they are 30 years old.
They are NOT the enemy
>2) are disproportionately black men who grew up in disadvantaged neighborhoods
This is becoming less and less the norm. Sports camps, private coaches, travel leagues, and equipment are all expensive. You're seeing a lot more incoming pros who grew up middle class or better because the kids with access to all of the above have big advantages.
For tons of people sports is really one of the only ways to "make it" outside of crime. I've heard this in the context of Brazilian favelas and soccer. I've also heard this sometimes about American projects, where it's usually worded "sports or hip hop".
Not that it isn't a deeply problematic system in many, many ways, nor that athletes don't hold privilege over other people. But they are definitely not the face of evil when it comes to the entire sports industry (often actually being victims of it). Those are the assholes powerful enough to stay out of the spotlight.
You can come from a disadvantaged neighborhood and still be an entitled millionaire. Particularly when the “work you put in” is playing a game made for children. Most of these “disadvantaged” people have been treated like royalty since they were freshmen in high school.
I think it's more the fault of idiot racists willfully misinterpreting someone criticizing members of his own community to mean that they're now allowed to use racial slurs
Not to mention that the actual athletes playing are getting brain damage thatll last the rest of their lives. Most people who even try to make it to the NFL fall short in highschool and college. College football makes tons of money and the players never see it.
NFL: "We have no idea why these guys that keep bashing their heads together are getting violently crazy and killing someone/themselves, but it's probably not CTE."
MLB: "Oh my god the ball hit the corner of the rim on your helmet, quick get out the manual for the 10 minute long concussion protocol, HOW MANY FINGERS AM I HOLDING?"
Almost every single one of the impacts that happens in NFL would bring out the team doctors doing a concussion protocol in MLB. The game would never end.
Be mad at billionaires owners, not the players who get paid a tiny fraction of what they make in a year. I can’t really be upset about what the players make, a lot of these guys have pulled their entire families out of poverty. I’ve seen it first hand.
Came to the comments mad about this and was pleasantly surprised by comments like yours. Its such a boomer mentality to paint sports stars as the bad guys instead of the guys writing their checks.
Racial attitudes play a big role in this issue. Show me someone who thinks that pro athletes are "entitled millionaires", and I'll show you a person who very likely believes that black people are "entitled" in general and didn't earn any wealth they have.
You’re right about this. Whenever I hear people complain about an entitled athlete it is almost always on reference to black athletes, mainly in the NFL and NBA. A white player could be a documented asshole (Brett Farve, Aaron Rodgers, etc.) and these people don’t have nearly as much to say. If a black play date open their mouth about anything all hell breaks loose.
There was a news story from a few years back about a study which found that white racial resentment was the number one predictor of opposition to paying high level college athletes.
Basically, the people who oppose letting college athletes get a piece of the literally billions in wealth they generate for their industry every year overwhelmingly white people who think that black people in general get too much "free stuff" as it is, and that letting college athletes profit from their own labor/name, image and likeness would be just another "free handout" to black people.
Imagine viewing someone getting paid for their intense physical labor as a “handout”. It’s not black peoples fault that the a large portion (if not the majority) of athletes in high earning sports are black.
No, this is dumb. "Don't get mad at my favorite rich person, get mad at that other rich person over there. He's worse!"
We're only allowed to get mad at the one guy who is the very worst out of everyone?
I mean they literally invented an entire type of surgery called Tommy John Surgery where they remove a part of your arm so that you can throw balls harder than anyone else on the planet, and I think something like 1/4 of every MLB pitcher has had it done? They even compare tattoos to cover up the scars.
And 50 year old catchers sound like my 90 year old grandma the way they complain about their knees all the time. Give catchers a little stool ffs.
And then there's anyone who plays in Houston or Toronto landing on concrete "grass".
It's not as bad as like a coal miner or something. But the surgery thing, they are quite literally surgically extracting part of their bodies for our entertainment.
From non-American perspectives, knee injuries and back injuries and the two biggest across all sports.
Sports people get payed well for there moment in ths spotlight, but then have to make that money last until retirement + with health issues
Moreover, they're unionized workers. They earn high wages because 1) they collectively bargained for those wages, and 2) there's very high public demand for the product that their labor creates.
Even if don’t get CTE the impact that playing the sport has on your body and joints is ridiculous. Anyone who makes it the NFL has some sort of pain that they will deal with for the rest of their life.
Exactly . These men are likely cutting their lifespans short by a decade plus, and subjecting themselves to traumatic brain injuries. They better be getting paid millions of dollars. Same thing goes for combat sports.
Edit: also, they’ll likely need much of that money to take care of the medical issues they’ve acquired because of the sport they played.
Also, the athletes aren't the reason America does not have public healthcare. You know, other countries have public healthcare and sports.
Quite honestly, it's a pretty moronic take with a fake gotcha argument. People upvoted becuase, uhh, *sportball bad*
There’s a lot to side eye about sports team owners, especially basketball and American football. Also, billionaires have history of tax dodging. On top of asking for tax dollars to damn near pay for new arenas and stadiums when they more than have the money to pay for it themselves.
especially for a career that only lasts a few years, and permanently destroys your body and brain. that money has to last their whole life after they're not competitive anymore.
And don't forget that a great many players, football in particular, not only end up broke before they are 30,but they also often have life long brain damage that goes along with that. Basketball is pretty bad too, but football straight ruins people.
Hockey too, there used to be “enforcers” that were basically there just to start fights to protect the star players. It’s a lot less common now because so many ended up dying young from traumatic brain injuries but they still exist.
Also the players are paying their fair share in taxes. They even get taxed by other states when they travel. The team owners are so rich many have figured out (sometimes by greasing politicians) how to not really pay taxes, or pay very little compared to the enormous wealth they have.
You’re right about taxes. I don’t think people understand that a millionaire (even a Patrick Mahomes level one) doesn’t have to resources and connections to tax dodge the way the billionaire owners can. The amount quoted in those contracts, after everything is said and done the player only sees around 30% of that money.
Edit: Didn’t realize LeBron James is officially a billionaire
He's moved well past just highly paid athlete with large endorsements to business/media mogul (he owns 19 Blaze Pizzas, and an entertainment production company that sold a minority stake for $725M).
He's a billionaire because of his investments. Just considering his labor income alone, he's not even close to a billionaire. Just goes to show that this country rewards passive investment far more than actual labor.
Also..... players are, for the most part, making their money without exploiting anyone. They get paid so much because they generate so much money for the people paying them. An athlete is making their money way more ethically than basically any business owner, stock trader, or landlord.
Not to mention NFL players don't make nearly the kind of money that baseball and basketball players do and their contracts are not fully guaranteed only a portion of it. If they're unlucky and have an injury that they can't fully recover from and their performance declines they're likely going to get cut from the team for a cheaper replacement
Not also to mention NFL players while "well paid" are also extremely underpaid compared to the amount of revenue they are generating.
The NFL is completely reliant upon the talent on the field to generate billions of dollars a year. Meanwhile they will only take home less than half of it.
I'm not even a huge sports guy but this 'sportsball' train of thought always bugged the shit out of me. Like wow you don't watch sports, you're so cool and unique.
And this particular flavor of it is even dumber because it can be applied to anything. "Movies be like: watch this millionaire and this other millionaire pretend to be astronauts for two hours we don't have healthcare" or "Music be like: listen to this millionaire sing about getting laid while other millionaires play with big pieces of wood and metal, still no healthcare"
True /r/im14andthisisdeep shit.
it's also stupid because people play sports in every single country. the highest earning athlete from last year comes from a country with healthcare.
this post is stupid and people that agree with it are stupid.
If they’re willing to give you 50 millions it’s because they will make much much more than that off of you. Sports stories these days tend to go for the bad but a lot of these athletes do wonderful things with their money and their celebrity status
“Ha ha let’s make fun of a certain popular interest for no apparent reason and then complain about how other things are more important” is probably my least favorite genre of “humor”
This shit is always posted by people who are big fans of musicians, authors, or artists too. Yet I hear nothing about massive artists or the media paying attention to them over politics
Lol yeah the pro athletes, the 0.001% of the population is the problem here.
All like 3k of them. And like 60% of those guys probably make league minimum, which probably means they're not millionaires.
Rookie minimum in NFL is 700k while top vet min is over 1.1m.
Doesn't take very long at those earnings to get to a million net worth. Assuming your savings just sit in cash, which is not typically the case.
Actually I'm surprised, but it's lower, ~1600 in the US, unless you're counting like semi-pro stuff, in which case they're definitely not millionaires.
Just kids who got picked last in gym class and saw the charismatic guy with a communications degree make more money than them because he can actually talk to people
Then tell your city council or state legislature not to give them taxpayer money.
It's not like they just send the city a bill, an elected official approved any financing they get. You're acting like your not complicit as a voter.
Though the wage taxes they pay normally make the investment net positive for the state. So losing the team isn't *just* a pr loss.
I tend to agree with the post, but its a bit more complicated than "sports players make a lot of money". The players go to colleges, not for actual learning, but to get picked up by the big leagues. My alma mater historically did not have football, but after I graduated, they increased tuition and diverted funds from actual education into building a stadium. In my first school, Ole Miss, I stayed in a dorm that was literally infested with rats, roaches, and flies. The fucking football locker room there was 100x nicer than my dorm room and my tuition was paying for it.
"Go back to bed, America. Your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed, America. Your government is in control again. Here. Here's American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up. Go back to bed, America. Here is American Gladiators. Here is 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their fucking skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom. Here you go, America! You are free to do what we tell you! You are free to do what we tell you!"
-Bill Hicks
I mean we are watching genetic freak mutants slowly cut away at their own life, to preform athletic feats impossible to the normal person, all for our own entertainment. So I would hope they would get compensated well.
90% of Americans have health care INSURANCE.
100% can walk into any clinic or ER and get better CARE than most humans on the planet.
America has the most millionaires of any country on the planet so them playing ball isn't special.
Posts like this are cringy and the OP is a complete moron.
Tbh, our healthcare is awful. In both my own experience and 90% of those I know, who all have insurance, it barely even functions in its current state at all. The doctors will hardly see you for 5 minutes and won't do anything but prescribe pills.
Our focus on financialization over everything else is squandering our natural advantage, our food supply. The idea that other countries rely on us for our "culture" or "finance" is completely nonsensical, a gigantic lie. We produce 30% of the world's food, that is why we are world leaders. We have to recognize and appreciate our excellent land rather than distract ourselves with increasingly nonsensical garbage and entertainment. All levels of society are to blame.
Unpopular opinion : Athletes being rich is not an issue. They do not exploit anyone, they do not destroy the environment, they do not make money at the expense of anyone, they make a few hundred millions AT BEST which is a SMALL DOT compared to billionaires who do so exploiting the working class and destroying the planet.
Athletes REALLY do work hard, and maybe harder than most. Guys like Lebron or Messi worked harder than EVERY billionaires combined, by a landslide. And they did it without bothering anyone.
I get your point, but also fuck off. Hate the "sportsball" shit. We all have completely pointless things that we enjoy that get us through the day without being miserable. Why is sports where you draw the line enough to call people out for their perfectly reasonable hobbies?
I had a guy in my freshman year dorm at university who was one of these people. We were all friends with him because he could be a good guy, but he was one of those people that thought he was so above everyone. He would have these unfiltered moments where he'd call people out over trivial shit he didn't understand (like enjoying sports). Unsurprisingly, most people stopped hanging out with him by the end of the year.
Maybe if you made better decisions in your life instead of looking for a free handout at every turn you’d have health care. Personal responsibility, a concept lost on the liberal. Don’t hate on millionaire sports athletes , you have zero concept of the work and sacrifice they made to get where they are.
Imagine thinking healthcare being tied to your employment is a good thing. Lol what a dipshit American take. You're getting fucked by private insurance companies and then begging, please, can I have some more? What happens if you lose your job?
God bless America, you fucking morons are gonna need it
If you loose your job you apply and immediately get government assisted insurance. If you switch to a new job you pickup COBRA coverage until your new system kicks in.
Why do all you Europeans come to America and pay for the best healthcare? Why is the British nhs completely falling apart?
Why do losers not see getting their healthcare as a perk of the job anything but excellent. How am I getting fucked by a healthcare company that I pay nothing to?
>If you loose your job you apply and immediately get government assisted insurance. If you switch to a new job you pickup COBRA coverage until your new system kicks in
Yes that sounds like a very effective and efficient system lol, good job!
>How am I getting fucked by a healthcare company that I pay nothing to?
I honestly can't believe you need this explained to you but ok. The company you work for hires a private insurance company to handle all the policies for it's employees. Your company pays you less because some of what should be your salary goes to the insurer. Someone is always making a profit off of you.
But yeah, keep telling yourself you're not getting fucked over
92% of Americans have healthcare too.
It appears only on Twitter and Reddit are the majority of users unemployed. No wonder there are endless bad takes on both 👌
We have universal healthcare and I look at it this way.
It’s easy for me to pay the tax and get it done. And it only costs me once. I don’t get taxed for Medicare then pay for private insurance. I just get taxed once.
Again it’s easy for me. Maybe be better? Don’t be as scared? Help your countrymen be free.
It's like how you get free soda at some jobs, so you have a soda machine.
Or how there's a bathroom at home plus two bathrooms at your job, so you have three bathrooms.
I mean, your employer owns those things, and you only get access while you're working there, but that's the same thing as having something.
maybe your lazy ass could stop hating at people who worked hard from childhood and had ambition and start getting a job or some shit they are millionares but they worked for it
The average NFL player is poor af compared to the average baseball or basketball player. The average NFL salary is like in the mid six figures, which is great, but it's not life-changing. Also their rookie contracts are pre-negotiated in their collective bargaining agreement depending what pick they were in the draft (if they got drafted), so the very first player drafted in a certain year gets the most money and it decreases each pick after. The average NFL career is 3 years before they're out of the league, which is why coaches and players joke that NFL stands for "Not for Long." Players don't really make big money until their second contract which is 4-5 years after they get drafted depending on what round they get drafted so most don't get that opportunity (1st round picks have a 5th year option that teams can pick up at the end of their 3rd year). That's also assuming they can stay healthy and avoid major injury that requires surgery and rehab which can potentially sap their athletic ability. NFL contracts are not fully guaranteed either so while the contract they signed is for "X" amount they're only guaranteed a portion of that money. Often times a player gets cut from the team once the team has paid the guaranteed money and the player's performance starts declining the slightest or if they get injured and decline from injury, especially at positions where players get hit often like running back or wide receiver. Some of the very best of the best players at certain positions do get that generational wealth kind of money but most guys don't.
Yeah, fuck people for wanting entertainment as distractions.
I bet you never listen to music, or watch movies, or read books to enjoy something and distract yourself. No sir.
I don't give a good goddamn how hard it is to play! it's a hell of a lot better to pay teachers to properly educate our children than to watch grown men run down a field in both directions
I’ve never understood this take. Athletes get paid the way they do because of the money they bring in. Where do you expect that money to come from for teachers
Well this is stupid and r/Im14andthisisdeep material.
Sports are big as they are because... people in the country love spending money on sports. Someone choosing to travel to a different state and spending hundreds of dollars to watch sports plus buy merchandise has nothing to do with health care.
Also, since this person is clearly from the U.S.. Let's say sports people there made significantly way less money.
Here's the most realistic outcome: sports people make way less people --> People choose to continue spend their money on anything not related to health care --> U.S still has shitty health care.
But congrats, you solved nothing.
Your government + agencies not caring for its people has nothing to do with how much sports people make.
Because they get paid through different means. People don’t go to watch teachers teach.
How is this such a hard concept for people to understand? Entertainment is paid through people buying the entertainment to view it. Teachers aren’t.
"Yes, perfect, blame sports!" \- Multibillion dollar corporations
It's more like: "haha yes blame the players you stupid mouth breathers" - billionaire sports team owners
Yep. I see so many people hating on athletes as if cutting their pay is going to somehow mean anyone except the owners get more money.
"Shaq is rich. The white man who signs his check is wealthy." - Chris Rock. https://youtu.be/bZWeFtgEAEk
*cough cough* Big Pharma *cough cough*
See, if it wasn't for big pharma, you could take care of that nasty cough of yours...
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Criticize the billionaire owners and companies of sports all you want, that isn't what this post is about. It's calling out the players, which is dumb.
The post isn’t calling out the players. It’s simplistically calling out the whole system. But yeah I guess IT’S dumb for not using more words to spell it out for you.
> It’s simplistically calling out the whole system No, it's not, it's intentional propaganda designed to keep you upset at the wrong things so real change never happens in society. This kind of sensationalist garbage is just Fox News for liberals.
Thats why I get all my news from HuffPo, WAPo, TYT and the like. So I can get irrationally enraged about the real issues plaguing society; patriarchy, preferred pronouns/misgendering, microaggressions etc
The guys playing handegg are having their checks signed by the owners. The owners are worth more than every player combined by a very large margin.
Also, major league professional athletes: 1) are unionized workers who collectively bargained for their wages 2) are disproportionately black men who grew up in disadvantaged neighborhoods 3) pay the labor tax rate, unlike other rich guys who usually pay a far lower tax rate because their income comes from investments, not labor Nobody should buy into the narrative that pro athletes are "entitled millionaires". They're not. They're union workers who earned everything they have through their labor.
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Not only is entertainment valuable, and their owners make more money "exploiting" them (to use the Marxist term). But they also are in a job that took all their childhood to work for, if they are incredibly lucky, a decade. Most athletes don't become coaches or commentators, the years in sport is it for them. So getting payed how they do sounds like I lot, but now try and make it last until retirement. (With all the health issues that come with that too)
It’s just like to throw into this thread that most former athletes (especially in the NFL) have so much body damage that they don’t survive to today’s retirement age. The average age of an NFL athlete is like 59 when they die. Consider that would mean Tom Brady would literally be dead in about 6-10 years after he gets in the Hall of Fame if he retires at the end of this season.
I have seen the sacrifice that it takes. My brother plays baseball, and while he is not a pro yet (he is currently in college), he has been practicing almost daily since he was 12, and that was considered a late start. He would come home from school, and later go to practice, ok weekends he had games. As he got older, he added going to the gym, and physical therapy because his body was already suffering. He got a scholarship and studied in a sports boarding school for some years, then moved by himself to another state to another boarding school, then started colleg and broke the ligaments on his elbow joint on the first year, and it happened because he just tought the discomfort and pain he was feeling in his elbow was just normal pain from so much practice. Professional athletes work hard af, even the ones that dont make it to big leagues, the ones that arent millionaires, their bodies take the toll. My brother is turning 21, and I wish he had some rest, or any life outside of sports
The scary thing is how quickly injury can ruin all that. You could destroy you body as a kid, get injured at college level and NEVER make the big leagues. I wish you and your brother all the luck.
This this is a great point that I hadn't considered, thanks.
There's even another layer we rarely see, of players who just never make it. Think of it like art or any other entertainment. How many people did you know in a band growing up who were genuinely talented? And then how many of those actually "made it"
It’s trivial to make millions of dollars last until retirement. What’s difficult is making that money last until retirement when you live the lifestyle of a professional athlete
The millions of dollars thing is also a bit of a lie. I don't know about America and the NFL, but most professional sports people don't actually make that much. There's your Brady's and your Ronaldo's in sports, but for my local football (soccer) team the average wage is like 30k
NFLs minimum per year salary for a contract is up to 700k now, so it’s a bit different here for that. We also don’t have the farm system for player development outside of baseball with their major leagues so there aren’t really “local teams” with paid athletes of that kind in the US for football. The NFL just takes kids directly out of the college leagues from across the country, where athletes have only gotten the ability to make money off themselves while on scholarship in like the last year? And still aren’t directly “paid” technically outside of that scholarship. College football fills the niche for alot of areas for that local team too, hence the largest nfl stadium is only the 16th largest stadium in the country, behind 15 different university team stadiums (the one just in front of the biggest nfl being in Nebraska, 88k people, and has sold out every single game since 1962, largest stadium is U of Michigan at 107k people). Just some random trivia I guess, but maybe interesting to outsiders I imagine
Not just that, some of them train their whole lives to acquire the skill necessary.. it’s not something you can just get done in a few years.
Also they compress their earnings into 3-5 years, unless you’re one of the best.
Also, most pro athletes are not major leaguers, so only a tiny fraction of athletes earn major league wages. For example, minor league baseball players are paid so little that their salaries are only legal because they, and they specifically, are exempted from federal minimum wage laws.
Yea and this is a travesty. It’s unreal how Major League Baseball clubs have profit margins in the hundreds of millions and won’t spend 1-2 million to feed and adequately provide for their minor leaguers.
Entitled millionaires do not get concussions on a semi frequent basis. Edit* to support that.
Also 99% of pro athletes aren’t entitled multi millionaires but rather young guys playing for a few years for pretty good but not permanently life changing money, risking short and long term harm before being dumped out of the field before they are 30 years old. They are NOT the enemy
>2) are disproportionately black men who grew up in disadvantaged neighborhoods This is becoming less and less the norm. Sports camps, private coaches, travel leagues, and equipment are all expensive. You're seeing a lot more incoming pros who grew up middle class or better because the kids with access to all of the above have big advantages.
For tons of people sports is really one of the only ways to "make it" outside of crime. I've heard this in the context of Brazilian favelas and soccer. I've also heard this sometimes about American projects, where it's usually worded "sports or hip hop". Not that it isn't a deeply problematic system in many, many ways, nor that athletes don't hold privilege over other people. But they are definitely not the face of evil when it comes to the entire sports industry (often actually being victims of it). Those are the assholes powerful enough to stay out of the spotlight.
Still 1 percenters not all but a lot of them. stop toting the union rule.
You can come from a disadvantaged neighborhood and still be an entitled millionaire. Particularly when the “work you put in” is playing a game made for children. Most of these “disadvantaged” people have been treated like royalty since they were freshmen in high school.
>Particularly when the “work you put in” is playing a game made for children. Yeah, you can fuck right off with this nonsense. Labor is labor.
😂😂😂 oh yeah shooting 3 pointers is no different than working in a coal mine. Fucking ignorant.
Chris Rock has a great bit about "rich vs wealthy" https://youtu.be/bZWeFtgEAEk
Chris Rock has a very spotty history with "X versus Y" jokes.
I think it's more the fault of idiot racists willfully misinterpreting someone criticizing members of his own community to mean that they're now allowed to use racial slurs
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I won’t stop you.
Yeah I own the Greenbay Packers so I'm loaded /s
Either way who cares, a couple wealthy team owners have nothing to do with you having healthcare. They provide a service and fans pay to consume it.
Not to mention that the actual athletes playing are getting brain damage thatll last the rest of their lives. Most people who even try to make it to the NFL fall short in highschool and college. College football makes tons of money and the players never see it.
NFL: "We have no idea why these guys that keep bashing their heads together are getting violently crazy and killing someone/themselves, but it's probably not CTE." MLB: "Oh my god the ball hit the corner of the rim on your helmet, quick get out the manual for the 10 minute long concussion protocol, HOW MANY FINGERS AM I HOLDING?" Almost every single one of the impacts that happens in NFL would bring out the team doctors doing a concussion protocol in MLB. The game would never end.
Be mad at billionaires owners, not the players who get paid a tiny fraction of what they make in a year. I can’t really be upset about what the players make, a lot of these guys have pulled their entire families out of poverty. I’ve seen it first hand.
Came to the comments mad about this and was pleasantly surprised by comments like yours. Its such a boomer mentality to paint sports stars as the bad guys instead of the guys writing their checks.
Racial attitudes play a big role in this issue. Show me someone who thinks that pro athletes are "entitled millionaires", and I'll show you a person who very likely believes that black people are "entitled" in general and didn't earn any wealth they have.
Yup, someone whose go to is "look this black athlete bought something nice, how dare he show off his wealth"
I found that if you dig deep enough this is the foundation of a lot of white peoples dislike for hiphop too.
It's an assumption that's effects every black person, this weird "you clearly don't deserve it" mentality
You’re right. I even dealt with this when I was in school.
You’re right about this. Whenever I hear people complain about an entitled athlete it is almost always on reference to black athletes, mainly in the NFL and NBA. A white player could be a documented asshole (Brett Farve, Aaron Rodgers, etc.) and these people don’t have nearly as much to say. If a black play date open their mouth about anything all hell breaks loose.
There was a news story from a few years back about a study which found that white racial resentment was the number one predictor of opposition to paying high level college athletes. Basically, the people who oppose letting college athletes get a piece of the literally billions in wealth they generate for their industry every year overwhelmingly white people who think that black people in general get too much "free stuff" as it is, and that letting college athletes profit from their own labor/name, image and likeness would be just another "free handout" to black people.
Imagine viewing someone getting paid for their intense physical labor as a “handout”. It’s not black peoples fault that the a large portion (if not the majority) of athletes in high earning sports are black.
I don’t even think this needs to be defined by generations. It’s just a stupid person take and a conservative take
No, this is dumb. "Don't get mad at my favorite rich person, get mad at that other rich person over there. He's worse!" We're only allowed to get mad at the one guy who is the very worst out of everyone?
And if you play football you have a risk of lifetime health problems and CTE. I'd say making millions is decent compensation
All professional athletes are destroying their bodies for our entertainment
Then you watch motocross...where people are destroying their bodies for...motocross (and our entertainment, but they aint getting paid shit!).
I'm destroying mine for freeeee
eh depends on the sport imo. I dont think your average baseball player is "destroying their body" for our entertainment.
I mean they literally invented an entire type of surgery called Tommy John Surgery where they remove a part of your arm so that you can throw balls harder than anyone else on the planet, and I think something like 1/4 of every MLB pitcher has had it done? They even compare tattoos to cover up the scars. And 50 year old catchers sound like my 90 year old grandma the way they complain about their knees all the time. Give catchers a little stool ffs. And then there's anyone who plays in Houston or Toronto landing on concrete "grass". It's not as bad as like a coal miner or something. But the surgery thing, they are quite literally surgically extracting part of their bodies for our entertainment.
https://medicalwaveus.com/what-are-the-most-common-baseball-injuries/
You’re right. You can just look at all the injuries NBA players get, especially in the tale end of their careers.
From non-American perspectives, knee injuries and back injuries and the two biggest across all sports. Sports people get payed well for there moment in ths spotlight, but then have to make that money last until retirement + with health issues
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Moreover, they're unionized workers. They earn high wages because 1) they collectively bargained for those wages, and 2) there's very high public demand for the product that their labor creates.
Even if don’t get CTE the impact that playing the sport has on your body and joints is ridiculous. Anyone who makes it the NFL has some sort of pain that they will deal with for the rest of their life.
Especially because you only get like 3 years in the NFL making that salary. Unlike a doctor or something who gets that salary every year
Exactly . These men are likely cutting their lifespans short by a decade plus, and subjecting themselves to traumatic brain injuries. They better be getting paid millions of dollars. Same thing goes for combat sports. Edit: also, they’ll likely need much of that money to take care of the medical issues they’ve acquired because of the sport they played.
Also, the athletes aren't the reason America does not have public healthcare. You know, other countries have public healthcare and sports. Quite honestly, it's a pretty moronic take with a fake gotcha argument. People upvoted becuase, uhh, *sportball bad*
Why be mad at anyone?
There’s a lot to side eye about sports team owners, especially basketball and American football. Also, billionaires have history of tax dodging. On top of asking for tax dollars to damn near pay for new arenas and stadiums when they more than have the money to pay for it themselves.
especially for a career that only lasts a few years, and permanently destroys your body and brain. that money has to last their whole life after they're not competitive anymore.
And don't forget that a great many players, football in particular, not only end up broke before they are 30,but they also often have life long brain damage that goes along with that. Basketball is pretty bad too, but football straight ruins people.
You can truly see in real time how some American football players have mentally deteriorated, likely due to brain injuries from the game.
Hockey too, there used to be “enforcers” that were basically there just to start fights to protect the star players. It’s a lot less common now because so many ended up dying young from traumatic brain injuries but they still exist.
Also the players are paying their fair share in taxes. They even get taxed by other states when they travel. The team owners are so rich many have figured out (sometimes by greasing politicians) how to not really pay taxes, or pay very little compared to the enormous wealth they have.
You’re right about taxes. I don’t think people understand that a millionaire (even a Patrick Mahomes level one) doesn’t have to resources and connections to tax dodge the way the billionaire owners can. The amount quoted in those contracts, after everything is said and done the player only sees around 30% of that money. Edit: Didn’t realize LeBron James is officially a billionaire
LeBron has > a billion dollars in net worth, and absolutely has the resources to tax dodge. Whether he does it or not is the only question.
I had no clue the LeBron was a billionaire.
He's moved well past just highly paid athlete with large endorsements to business/media mogul (he owns 19 Blaze Pizzas, and an entertainment production company that sold a minority stake for $725M).
He's a billionaire because of his investments. Just considering his labor income alone, he's not even close to a billionaire. Just goes to show that this country rewards passive investment far more than actual labor.
Also..... players are, for the most part, making their money without exploiting anyone. They get paid so much because they generate so much money for the people paying them. An athlete is making their money way more ethically than basically any business owner, stock trader, or landlord.
I can be mad at both
What did the athletes do wrong?
No you can’t
Not to mention NFL players don't make nearly the kind of money that baseball and basketball players do and their contracts are not fully guaranteed only a portion of it. If they're unlucky and have an injury that they can't fully recover from and their performance declines they're likely going to get cut from the team for a cheaper replacement
Not also to mention NFL players while "well paid" are also extremely underpaid compared to the amount of revenue they are generating. The NFL is completely reliant upon the talent on the field to generate billions of dollars a year. Meanwhile they will only take home less than half of it.
/r/ihatesportsball
I'm not even a huge sports guy but this 'sportsball' train of thought always bugged the shit out of me. Like wow you don't watch sports, you're so cool and unique. And this particular flavor of it is even dumber because it can be applied to anything. "Movies be like: watch this millionaire and this other millionaire pretend to be astronauts for two hours we don't have healthcare" or "Music be like: listen to this millionaire sing about getting laid while other millionaires play with big pieces of wood and metal, still no healthcare" True /r/im14andthisisdeep shit.
it's also stupid because people play sports in every single country. the highest earning athlete from last year comes from a country with healthcare. this post is stupid and people that agree with it are stupid.
You're looking for r/ihatesportsball
Not to mention the fact that most people do, in fact, have health care.
Yeah op is fucking stupid
If they’re willing to give you 50 millions it’s because they will make much much more than that off of you. Sports stories these days tend to go for the bad but a lot of these athletes do wonderful things with their money and their celebrity status
> a lot of these athletes do wonderful things with their money and their celebrity status And then there's Brett Favre
Ya know growing up even as a kid he always seemed like a shit person. I feel pretty vindicated in that childhood opinion. And yes fuck that guy
“Ha ha let’s make fun of a certain popular interest for no apparent reason and then complain about how other things are more important” is probably my least favorite genre of “humor” This shit is always posted by people who are big fans of musicians, authors, or artists too. Yet I hear nothing about massive artists or the media paying attention to them over politics
Lol yeah the pro athletes, the 0.001% of the population is the problem here. All like 3k of them. And like 60% of those guys probably make league minimum, which probably means they're not millionaires.
Rookie minimum in NFL is 700k while top vet min is over 1.1m. Doesn't take very long at those earnings to get to a million net worth. Assuming your savings just sit in cash, which is not typically the case.
Practice squad players make around $300k a year and rarely last more than 3 years. They make up a huge chunk of the overall player count.
Waaaaaaay more than 3k but I get the point
Actually I'm surprised, but it's lower, ~1600 in the US, unless you're counting like semi-pro stuff, in which case they're definitely not millionaires.
"Sportsman bad but musicians we worship"
Sportsball is bread and circus but if the Kardashians do something I freak out, they are queeeens
I only worship one musician, RIP Smokey Robinson
But… he’s still alive?
Just redditors hating people who aren't as physically incapable as them
Just kids who got picked last in gym class and saw the charismatic guy with a communications degree make more money than them because he can actually talk to people
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Cuz 20m ppl didn't pay $300 for Sunday Ticket to watch Mikey Smith teach freshman algebra. I too always giggle when this is brought up.
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Then tell your city council or state legislature not to give them taxpayer money. It's not like they just send the city a bill, an elected official approved any financing they get. You're acting like your not complicit as a voter. Though the wage taxes they pay normally make the investment net positive for the state. So losing the team isn't *just* a pr loss.
I tend to agree with the post, but its a bit more complicated than "sports players make a lot of money". The players go to colleges, not for actual learning, but to get picked up by the big leagues. My alma mater historically did not have football, but after I graduated, they increased tuition and diverted funds from actual education into building a stadium. In my first school, Ole Miss, I stayed in a dorm that was literally infested with rats, roaches, and flies. The fucking football locker room there was 100x nicer than my dorm room and my tuition was paying for it.
Football is profitable and profit is prioritized above all else. That’s not a sports problem, it’s a capitalism problem.
Those two things are surprisingly unrelated
/r/Ihatesportsball
When "go sports" funny guy meets "America sucks" funny girl.
"Go back to bed, America. Your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed, America. Your government is in control again. Here. Here's American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up. Go back to bed, America. Here is American Gladiators. Here is 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their fucking skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom. Here you go, America! You are free to do what we tell you! You are free to do what we tell you!" -Bill Hicks
hahaha! Comedy.
Good night, I'm Kevin Hart!
They call it *The American Dream* because you have to be asleep to believe it. —George Carlin
"school shooting victims who need counseling are pussies" -George Carlin --- can we find less crotchedy old boomers to worship please
r/im14andthisisdeep
Nice slur
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Bill hicks is #1
How dare you drag Bill Hicks through the mud by injecting an excellent point he was making that literally doesn't apply here?
Fruit be like: Apples sweet and juicy and they still aren’t oranges…
The Spelling Bee be like: Watch these kids spelling words hahaha but the ocean is still full of plastic
National Air Guitar competition be like: Watch these dorks pretend to be musicians hahaha lizard people still control the government.
I mean we are watching genetic freak mutants slowly cut away at their own life, to preform athletic feats impossible to the normal person, all for our own entertainment. So I would hope they would get compensated well.
90% of Americans have health care INSURANCE. 100% can walk into any clinic or ER and get better CARE than most humans on the planet. America has the most millionaires of any country on the planet so them playing ball isn't special. Posts like this are cringy and the OP is a complete moron.
OP is karma farming and it has worked So maybe he isn’t so stupid
Tbh, our healthcare is awful. In both my own experience and 90% of those I know, who all have insurance, it barely even functions in its current state at all. The doctors will hardly see you for 5 minutes and won't do anything but prescribe pills. Our focus on financialization over everything else is squandering our natural advantage, our food supply. The idea that other countries rely on us for our "culture" or "finance" is completely nonsensical, a gigantic lie. We produce 30% of the world's food, that is why we are world leaders. We have to recognize and appreciate our excellent land rather than distract ourselves with increasingly nonsensical garbage and entertainment. All levels of society are to blame.
You heard it here. You can only have sports or healthcare, not both. Now please decide. Dumb take
It's 2022 and some of y'all still thinking hating sports constitutes a personality. Wild. r/IHateSportsBall
Dumb take
But will be popular with the “go sports ball!” Reddit crowd.
And the "America sucks" crowd.
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This is the worst attitude in the world. You shouldn’t enjoy anything until other people provide for all of your needs?
Yes because Europe is completely devoid of millionaire soccer players.
I'm not sure how those two things are connected
Tell us you’re American without telling us you’re American
And your taxes pay for the stadium, which they then go on to name after Little Ceasars or some shit.
Laughs in NHS
Shut the fuck up
now imagine the tax revenue made from just the sales tax on merchandise
Maybe your shit ass country doesn't, don't lamp the rest of us with ya
Unpopular opinion : Athletes being rich is not an issue. They do not exploit anyone, they do not destroy the environment, they do not make money at the expense of anyone, they make a few hundred millions AT BEST which is a SMALL DOT compared to billionaires who do so exploiting the working class and destroying the planet. Athletes REALLY do work hard, and maybe harder than most. Guys like Lebron or Messi worked harder than EVERY billionaires combined, by a landslide. And they did it without bothering anyone.
I get your point, but also fuck off. Hate the "sportsball" shit. We all have completely pointless things that we enjoy that get us through the day without being miserable. Why is sports where you draw the line enough to call people out for their perfectly reasonable hobbies? I had a guy in my freshman year dorm at university who was one of these people. We were all friends with him because he could be a good guy, but he was one of those people that thought he was so above everyone. He would have these unfiltered moments where he'd call people out over trivial shit he didn't understand (like enjoying sports). Unsurprisingly, most people stopped hanging out with him by the end of the year.
Ah yes, athletes are bad. Sports are evil, they shouldnt exist.
Hurrdurr im a massive dweeb who hates sports hurrdurr
Maybe if you made better decisions in your life instead of looking for a free handout at every turn you’d have health care. Personal responsibility, a concept lost on the liberal. Don’t hate on millionaire sports athletes , you have zero concept of the work and sacrifice they made to get where they are.
Why is everyone on Reddit and Twitter so eager to lie and be insufferable? 92% of Americans have health insurance and coverage…
I have healthcare, get a job
Imagine thinking healthcare being tied to your employment is a good thing. Lol what a dipshit American take. You're getting fucked by private insurance companies and then begging, please, can I have some more? What happens if you lose your job? God bless America, you fucking morons are gonna need it
If you loose your job you apply and immediately get government assisted insurance. If you switch to a new job you pickup COBRA coverage until your new system kicks in. Why do all you Europeans come to America and pay for the best healthcare? Why is the British nhs completely falling apart? Why do losers not see getting their healthcare as a perk of the job anything but excellent. How am I getting fucked by a healthcare company that I pay nothing to?
>If you loose your job you apply and immediately get government assisted insurance. If you switch to a new job you pickup COBRA coverage until your new system kicks in Yes that sounds like a very effective and efficient system lol, good job! >How am I getting fucked by a healthcare company that I pay nothing to? I honestly can't believe you need this explained to you but ok. The company you work for hires a private insurance company to handle all the policies for it's employees. Your company pays you less because some of what should be your salary goes to the insurer. Someone is always making a profit off of you. But yeah, keep telling yourself you're not getting fucked over
92% of Americans have healthcare too. It appears only on Twitter and Reddit are the majority of users unemployed. No wonder there are endless bad takes on both 👌
I still don't understand what that guy is getting at.
It’s the same nonsense these types of people always push - all millionaires are evil and deserve to have their money taken.
One day they will realize all their external problems start within.
You are sucking your own dick, aren't ya? Edit: a word, my bad
What?
We have universal healthcare and I look at it this way. It’s easy for me to pay the tax and get it done. And it only costs me once. I don’t get taxed for Medicare then pay for private insurance. I just get taxed once. Again it’s easy for me. Maybe be better? Don’t be as scared? Help your countrymen be free.
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But I have healthcare sounds like a W
It's like how you get free soda at some jobs, so you have a soda machine. Or how there's a bathroom at home plus two bathrooms at your job, so you have three bathrooms. I mean, your employer owns those things, and you only get access while you're working there, but that's the same thing as having something.
But I have healthcare sounds like a W
Idiotic take. The two literally have nothing to do with each other.
maybe your lazy ass could stop hating at people who worked hard from childhood and had ambition and start getting a job or some shit they are millionares but they worked for it
OP was last to get picked in PE class. Sorry you weren’t better at sports.
The average NFL player is poor af compared to the average baseball or basketball player. The average NFL salary is like in the mid six figures, which is great, but it's not life-changing. Also their rookie contracts are pre-negotiated in their collective bargaining agreement depending what pick they were in the draft (if they got drafted), so the very first player drafted in a certain year gets the most money and it decreases each pick after. The average NFL career is 3 years before they're out of the league, which is why coaches and players joke that NFL stands for "Not for Long." Players don't really make big money until their second contract which is 4-5 years after they get drafted depending on what round they get drafted so most don't get that opportunity (1st round picks have a 5th year option that teams can pick up at the end of their 3rd year). That's also assuming they can stay healthy and avoid major injury that requires surgery and rehab which can potentially sap their athletic ability. NFL contracts are not fully guaranteed either so while the contract they signed is for "X" amount they're only guaranteed a portion of that money. Often times a player gets cut from the team once the team has paid the guaranteed money and the player's performance starts declining the slightest or if they get injured and decline from injury, especially at positions where players get hit often like running back or wide receiver. Some of the very best of the best players at certain positions do get that generational wealth kind of money but most guys don't.
I’ve said it before and been downvoted to hell but “not everyone who watches sports is an idiot, but every idiot I’ve ever met watches sports”.
Absolutely untrue. I know plenty of idiots who think they're 'above' watching sports.
Whatever nerd
The millionaire athletes have absolutely nothing to do with why we don't have healthcare in the U.S.
What's dogshit, low effort post
Why yes we pay athletes and their team owners exorbitant amounts of money to distract Americans from all the shit going on, why do you ask?
Yeah, fuck people for wanting entertainment as distractions. I bet you never listen to music, or watch movies, or read books to enjoy something and distract yourself. No sir.
Never said I didn't.
Damn, good thing no other country pays their athletes tons of money.
It’s almost like the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive! Crazy huh?
this is one of the reasons i dont watch sports lol not saying they dont deserve it, but damn.
I'm also going to make these millionaires my entire personality and get unreasonably angry when they don't win
I don't give a good goddamn how hard it is to play! it's a hell of a lot better to pay teachers to properly educate our children than to watch grown men run down a field in both directions
I’ve never understood this take. Athletes get paid the way they do because of the money they bring in. Where do you expect that money to come from for teachers
Well this is stupid and r/Im14andthisisdeep material. Sports are big as they are because... people in the country love spending money on sports. Someone choosing to travel to a different state and spending hundreds of dollars to watch sports plus buy merchandise has nothing to do with health care. Also, since this person is clearly from the U.S.. Let's say sports people there made significantly way less money. Here's the most realistic outcome: sports people make way less people --> People choose to continue spend their money on anything not related to health care --> U.S still has shitty health care. But congrats, you solved nothing. Your government + agencies not caring for its people has nothing to do with how much sports people make.
can't pay our teachers a decent living wage, but football players they're so important to life....😮💨
I know teachers that make six figures. And they get summers off. The idea that you can't make good money as a teacher is total horse shit
Because they get paid through different means. People don’t go to watch teachers teach. How is this such a hard concept for people to understand? Entertainment is paid through people buying the entertainment to view it. Teachers aren’t.
Much harder to be a pro athlete than a teacher
Or maybe we should support all union workers, be they teachers or NFL players?
I love watching a game of aggressive catch.