Quote:
Originally Posted by JPhillips
I'm a big believer in social pressure to demand more from the top 1%, so in that sense, I agree some players and owners could and should do a lot more.
Your economics, though, are off. If salaries are 14 billion, that means maybe ten billion or so is left after taxes and agent fees. A lot of athletes don't come close to making 1 mil a year, so take all of that out of the equation.
There's not as much as you state, and some of that is used to pay various staff, so cutting that off is counter productive.
Finally, a lot of athletes are giving big amounts of money and that shouldn't be discounted. Some can and should give more, but you're just wrong to imply that nobody cares enough to give money.
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I don't think my numbers are that far off. The $14 billion number comes from Sporttrac. And to correct your post, my theory is based on a $1 million flat salary across the board, so many minimum salary players would be getting raises. Now multiply $1 million times 98 players (53 NFL, 15 NBA and 30 MLB) and 92 teams. That gives you a total of $1.8 billion. Thus your $12 billion excess.
And I appreciate that doesn't factor in costs like agents. BUT, if you moved to a flat salary with incremental service raises (ie. like nurses, teachers, etc.) then you really have no need for agents. So players pocket that money themselves.
It also doesn't factor in taxes. I don't even know why that would be a consideration. We all have salary figures and we all pay taxes on those salaries.
The overall net effect of this would mean that superstar players that play for ten plus years are taking home $10+ million. That's a pretty good income for the rest of one's life and they should be able to supplement it with whatever and live very comfortably. Furthermore, those fringe players would actually come out ahead financially as well. An NFL player that currently only plays two years makes a little over a million. Under my scenario, they would now be making $2 million. Not necessarily set for life, but very well off and actually better off than they presently are.