Assuming us profligate human beans survive…I suspect that anthropologists of the far-off future of, say, the 25th century, as they study a recently discovered cache of salary data from our ancient 21st century times (on some oxidized Seagate hard drive found in an old methane-bloated landfill), will be shocked and appalled. They will see, for example, that the average salary for a professional basketball player in the NBA was $5.15 million way back in the 2010s while the average salary for a K-12 teacher in the USofA was somewhere around $56,000.
These anthropologists might comment: “Wow, what a distorted sense of societal values!” And I fully agree.
You might say: “What! That’s just the free market at work–those players EARNED it! The fans willingly bought the tickets and the official jerseys and the hats and the beer and the hot dogs, after all!”
I say: BULLSHIT. And BULLSHIT, again.
It doesn’t have to be that way. In this case, the free market is seriously f@#%ed up and has actually become a very corrupting influence.
[Here, cue up the catchy new tune Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by the latest hot group, Romulus Augustus and the Corrupt Senate Chorale.]
When I was young, I played baseball, slept with my perfectly-greased and formed glove and a grass-stained ball…and my dearest and most earnest dream was to play for the New York Yankees just like my heroes–the Babe, Lou Gehrig, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, et al. You wouldn’t have had to pay me more than a simple and decent living wage and I would have been absolutely ecstatic to take the field in those famous pinstripes. It was all about love of the game.
I suspect most pro athletes these days still have a deep “love of the game” and good for them. Unfortunately, perhaps some now also have a growing sense of entitlement to those huge…er, yuuuge…salaries and bonuses. They (and many of us) think they deserve them.
So, here is my very simplistic, idealistic, naive proposal: A salary cap of $500,000 maximum on all pro athlete salaries, indexed to inflation and cost-of-living in whatever area of the country they might live. Maybe we could do the same with Hollywood salaries that go above that half million mark. All extra money above those limits would go to raise teacher salaries. (It might not actually raise salaries for educators a lot, but it would be quite a statement, don’t you think?)
But, Dan, those athletes are really dedicated! They train hard, they EARN those salaries!
Again, I say, BULLSHIT. I don’t believe anyone in the world is worth $5 million a year no matter how hard they work–yes, even CEOs, brain surgeons, race car drivers, and any other job you care to name. You should be building a company for love of the game…a doctor for love of the game…careening around the oval track for love of the game.
And, I would add that the best teachers are very highly trained as well, and they put in just as many hours–perhaps more–as any pro ball player does. Many are extremely skilled at what they do. The teaching profession ought to be as valued, as publicized, and as romanticized as those who choose sports–even more so, actually.
And ultimately, which is most important to the strength of our social fabric: a basketball player, or a teacher?
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2 Comments
Bravo for saying it out loud.
Thanks, Rick. There are a lot of other things as well that we take for granted in our society that don’t make a lot of sense. I’ll eventually get to them in additional posts.