I wonder why athletes get paid so much when they are just entertaining us. Why can’t doctors, police officers, the president and professors get paid the same? I think this is unfair to us because in most cases our jobs are more serious and important than sports. I don’t understand how come when we miss a day off work we don’t get paid, but athletes can get paid for even sitting out the season of play? Professional athletes should not get paid as much because their jobs are not as important as saving lives or controlling the country.
Alex Rodriguez a baseball player signed a 252 million dollar contract for ten years with Texas Rangers before coming to the New York Yankees. His batting average is just .305. Why should he get paid that amount of money when he can’t even win a World Series ring and bring a championship to New York? The president makes 250,000 dollars while Alex makes 22 million dollars a year. That means, Alex makes 88 times more than the president makes in a year when his job is not even as serious as the president’s. Alex doesn’t have to worry about the hunger crisis, war, or the Aids epidemic but the president does.
Another athlete is Ken Griffey Jr. who signed a 116.5 million dollar contract with the Cincinnati Reds. He didn’t even play many games and he still got paid. In 2002 he played 70 games, in 2003 he played 70 games and in 2004 he played 83 games out of a season’s 162 games. That’s a lot of games missed for a player receiving that kind of money. This guy has also yet to win a championship. Grant Hill an NBA player signed a 93 million dollar contract with the Orlando Magic. In 2001 through, 2003 he just played 47 games out of a three-year total of 246 games in the NBA because of an injury. Yet, he still got paid while he missed all of these games. Why can’t professors get paid when they take a day because they are sick?
An average person makes 30,000 dollars a year. If we compare a regular persons salary of 30,000 dollars to Derek Jeter’s 14.6 million dollars a year it is a huge difference. For instance, if we were to buy a house that cost 275,000 dollars it would seem to cost Jeter $565. If we bought a car that cost 20,000 dollars it would seem to cost him $91. Lastly, if we were to buy a $2.00 Big Mac it would seem to be free with the pay he gets. One last example is Shaquille O’Neal, who makes 24 million dollars a year. If a regular person were to buy a 2,000 dollar laptop it would cost Shaq $2.50 instead. If we wanted to stay in a hotel room it would cost us about 100 dollars, but for Shaq it would just seem to be 13 cents.
I think it’s all right for athletes to receive a lot of money but, not too much. Yes it is true that their line of duty is very risky because of injuries. If that was the case then why don’t the people that are fighting in Iraq for our country get paid that much? I don’t think that athletes should receive millions, especially if they get injured or they have not even won championships.