Why should sports figures make more than educators?

Question

What reasons should a sports figure (I'm talking about the top sports figures) be paid more than an educator?

Answer 1

For one thing, look at the numbers of people they serve. A few hundred pro football players provide all the pro football for our whole society. A few hundred teachers cant even provide all the education for one decently populated county. So all of society's "budget" for pro sports goes to a few individuals, while society's budget for education is divided by many many teachers.

Second, a teacher's career can be decades long. A typical pro athlete lasts about 2 years, so higher salaries could be thought of as a compensation for lack of job security.

Third, salaries in any field reflect the ability of employers to measure and quantify the performance of employees. Its hard to measure how good a teacher is, but a ball player's performance is quantified extensively by their batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, walks, strike-outs, stolen bases, runs scored, runs batted in, etc. If teacher performance could me measured as well as an athlete's, school boards would compete for the "star" teachers and thier saleries would go shoot up.

Finally, a teacher doesnt end their career with a list if injuries and surgeries a mile long.

Answer 2

They shouldn't. Bottom line. They are because of television, and the propensity of Americans to pay for the service. As a society, we control what happens, yet we feel so powerless.

If the entire foundation of the country, and I mean teachers, police officers, firemen, nurses, EMT's, and most importantly the Armed Forces, who get paid peanuts to risk their lives, would all strike at the same time, coupled with a total strike against professional sports, we might get somewhere.

It's sad, I agree, to see those guys who contribute nothing essential to society, getting paid more in a day then many working class people get paid in a whole year, making so much money when those who actually do something significant for the human race can barely afford a house payment.

Aristotle thinks that what goes up must come down. The tide that flows is the same tide that turns. Maybe not in our lifetime though.

Answer 3

Well there are over three million teachers alone that make up the too major teachers unions in the United States while there are less that 10,000 profession atheletes in total if you and up the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, PGA, NTA, etc... Now I am a teacher and I wouldn't mind making the NFL minimum wage every year instead of what I make now (and I am not trying to get to greedy and ask for the NBA minimum) but how you going to come up with the money. I would suggest you study up on an economic concept called "sacarcity"- mean there just isn't enough money. I will be teaching 125 kids this year - Tom Brady will be playing infront of 60,000 fans just about every Sunday and not to mention millions of people on TV. There is no comparison between the economics of education and that of professional sports.

Answer 4

For no reason other than the stupidity of mankind. Your question is vital. indeed why pay tens of millions to a sport player or a singer or an actor and not pay more for example the elected people who run governments or educators etc...In fact all people who contribute significantly more to building positively the future of our society. It's a shame for mankind that a rapper or a b-movie actress makes more money than an educator or a senator. This is a reflection of the stage of evolution of our world.

Answer 5

A simple case of supply and demand. Only a few hundreds of athletes in the world have the skills and natural abilities to make it in the professional leagues. However, there are millions of people who can be teachers. Almost any college grad can be a teacher with 2 extra years of grad school in education.

Each of us is paid the fair market wage. I would say that the Firemen and the policemen are more underpaid.

Answer 6

(Excuse my spelling errors...)

What is it now?

More Americans can name 2 of 7 dwarves from Snow White than those who can name 2 of 7 supreme court justices? Entertainment is greater then education, than enlightenment, it seems these days. Our society, our popculture is degregative. It rots minds. And the masses are addicted to pop culture and OD on it daily. We should be concerned about and in awe at how little the general public knows. What highly educated person really gives a rats *** about some celebrity divorce, or some celebrity acts of adultry???

Irrelevant!!!

Waste of time!!!

Wow... but I digress.

Answer 7

They shouldn't, but they entertain just like actors and this society
thrives on entertainment, which is very big business. The excessive salaries that actors and sports figures make is way out of proportion to what the average person makes and quite frankly, I think it's disgusting.

Answer 8

Sports figures fill up stadiums and educators hardly fill up classrooms. But you should also know by now that money is for idiots, they always make the most somehow!

Answer 9

Economics 101...People are willing to pay sports figures more than they are willing to pay educators.
Would you rather have a tyrannical government running our economy and our lives, and telling us all what we will be paid, all in the name of "fairness"?
Life is unfair. We should all learn to get over it and do our best regardless.

Answer 10

Sports teams satiate tribal urges we have and entertaining the masses is actually more important that educating them believe it or not as entertaining is a form of controlling the masses.