Salries in Professional Sports

Over the last decade, players’ salaries in professional sports have been increasing dramatically. Some people suggest that these oversized salaries are hurting professional sports, while others would suggest that these players are simply being paid what they are worth. With each passing season, the paycheck comparisons are getting stranger and stranger. From the baseball diamond to the gridiron, players' wallets are bulging. The Forbes Super 40 - the nation's 40 richest jocks - watched their salaries swell by 24 percent last year to an average $17 million per athlete. Since 1983, the average baseball wage has risen by 870 percent, to $1.3 million. "The escalating salaries in professional sports today is absolutely the biggest problem that all of the four major leagues [basketball, baseball, hockey, and football] face in terms of their ability to thrive in the next millennium," says Dean Bonham, a Denver-based sports marketer. "There is nothing that is even a close second." The hi...