Are sports professionals over payed?

[northcity4]

In sports, like the NBA, it's a norm that all players get payed minimum hundreds of thousands of dollars, but for most: millions of dollars.

Arguments I have heard as to why this is okay: If someone is going to offer you millions of dollars to play a sport for them, might as well take it. Legal, nothing illegal about it.

Arguments I have heard as to why it is not okay: High pay only cause of the norm. If the norm had been in the thousands and not millions, players would play just as hard, for much less. It's not fair for you to get the easy road (like being born talented) and being able to make millions and retire after like a few years and poor me has to work some boring life and retire when I am basically dead.

Again, these are arguments I have heard. Your thoughts?

[Naesala]

As i see it, sports stars are like movie stars. I believe both are overpaid, some do good things with their extra money and some do bad things. But so long as they are in high demand by the public which they are, they will continue to earn extremely large amounts of money. So while I don't believe they merit what they're paid, supply and demand say they do and until desire to see sports stars drop pay will not drop.

Also, seems like someone is in a very Sport mindset today

[whatifidogetcaught?]

They are absolutely overpaid. They get paid millions to play a GAME. Some play for the love of the game, and would easily take a paycut, and some sadly have lost the love of the game but want millions. The main thing to keep in mind here is that the agents they hire usually get a cut of the salary the players earn-and the agents usually do the negotiating. Another thing is that they provide entertainment. Football, or soccer players get paid even more then the best American Football players and baseball players because they entertain a larger crowd.

[vrt]

On the other hand, if your career only lasted 20 years and had a lot of injury risks, you'd want a pretty big paycheck too.

[northcity4]

True...but in 20 years you will make a bunch more than the average citizen. Some players make more than what I will make in 50 years in just playing 2 years in a sport.

As i see it, sports stars are like movie stars. I believe both are overpaid, some do good things with their extra money and some do bad things. But so long as they are in high demand by the public which they are, they will continue to earn extremely large amounts of money. So while I don't believe they merit what they're paid, supply and demand say they do and until desire to see sports stars drop pay will not drop.

Also, seems like someone is in a very Sport mindset today

I was bored of the philosophy thread and wanted to see what happened here.