State Of The Game Essays - Sports, Economy, Montreal Expos

State Of The Game Joey Simon English 1550 March 5, 2001 State of the Game Every year, it becomes more obvious that many sports in America have problems. For years, Hockey has been criticized for its excessive violence. The National Football League has also been scrutinized for this reason as well as the fact that many of the top players have constantly been in trouble with the law. Major League Baseball is no different. The situation with baseball is more complicated, and is not only ruining the game itself, but also drawing millions of fans away from the sport. The biggest problem is with the high salaries paid to athletes. These salaries are taking the competitiveness out of several sports, especially baseball, where there is no salary cap. Action must be taken immediately to cap the salaries paid to baseball players, before baseball in America rapidly diminishes. I believe that this problem has really just started to work its way in during the last decade. Many fans that have grown to love the game of baseball are now sickened by the amount of money being paid to the athletes. Unfortunately, what the fans see is only the athletes salary. What they dont see is how much money the owners are making from these athletes. The athletes fill the bleachers full of die-hard baseball fans year in and year out. These players are a major source of income for the owners. By signing big name players to the team, this in essence brings more and more fans to the stadium. A stunning quote from online site http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2001/03/30/news /baseball/ written by Chris Isidore on March 30, 2001 states that, Baseball's average ticket price has more than doubled in a decade, increasing 120 percent from 1991, when it was $8.64The average salary of players, $851,492 in 1991, has more than doubled in the same time period and is expected to be more than $2.2 million when the season opens Sunday. These million dollar contracts that the players are getting are nothing but peanuts to the owners. They merely raise the ticket prices a few dollars and make twice the amount of the athletes. The fans that come to watch the athletes and who pay nearly $20 to get in the ballpark are padding the pockets of these owners. Statistics taken from online site http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2001 /03/30/news/baseball/ show that baseball ticket prices have gone up from $16.67 to $18.99 in just one year. A quote from the same online site http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2001/03/30/news /baseball/ wrote by Chris Isidore says, Baseball fans going through the turnstiles on opening day across the nation Monday will be paying about 13 percent more than they did last year, according to a survey of pricesThe increase makes baseball the sport with the fastest growing prices. Baseball in the United States is no longer Americas Pastime. Baseball has changed to a high priced business, where average players make millions and above average players make tens of millions. To make the situation even worse, the dumbfounded owners and greedy sports agents who contaminate the game and the talented young athletes playing in it, control this business. Many fans throughout the U.S. blame the high priced contracts on the athletes, but they are not the source of the problem. In a sense, the athletes are just getting their piece of the pie. What the athletes make is just a small portion of what the industry itself makes. Professional teams routinely pull in billions of dollars per year and the athletes receive only a small share of what the industry receives. Information from online site http://www.sportsline.com shows that there are currently ten Major League Baseball players receiving a salary of over $15 million dollars a year. However, these players teams are owned by companies such as Disney and Fox television, which have annual revenues of billions of dollars. What the fans dont understand is that, in many cases, single individuals do not own the teams but large companies who are able to afford to pay the players such high salaries. Television also plays a huge part in the baseball players increasing salaries. Major League Baseball and nearly all sports have huge contracts with the major television networks for billions of dollars.