More evidence that we live in a backwards society
whygohome
Posts: 2,305
Just another tidbit that shows we are a backwards society. Millionaire athletes are underpaid? What about the soldiers sent to the desert to die for corporate interests? What about the soldier who has his legs blown off by an IED? What about fireman who risk their lives everyday to help people? What about nurses? What about EMTs? What about those given the responsibility to educate (and babysit, and raise, and teach right and wrong to) our children?
What a pathetic and disgraceful article. As if the Penn St. scandal wasn't enough to illustrate that we are a backwards society (sacrifice kids! Save the almighty college football program!!), this type of article provides more evidence that our societal and humanitarian priorities are deranged, warped, unChristian (side note: I had to throw that one in--yes, the religious Right are nothing but hypocrites), and in a state of regression.
Written by a reporter employed by CNBC.
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=y ... ker_111811
These players aren’t making enough money
By Darren Rovell, CNBC.com Nov 18, 3:49 pm EST
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With the 2011 NFL season halfway over, the first 10 weeks have been marked by injuries, disappointments but also breakout performances. Of this year’s breakout players, many have only been in the league for a few seasons, and for these elite players their current contracts may be working against them.
Although these premier players may not be making all-star salaries, when it comes time for them to negotiate a new contract you can expect their compensation will be more in line with their abilities. This list focuses on identifying underpaid offensive players at skill positions as their stat lines are more quantifiable.
We start with New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, who sits at No. 10 on our list.
Click here for more players
Slideshow: The NFL’s 10 most underpaid players
Gronkowski is an absolute machine, moving his 6-foot-6, 265-pound body with ridiculous agility. In the last four games, against the Cowboys, Steelers, Giants and Jets, Gronkowski has caught at least seven passes and has averaged 95.5 yards a game. Gronkowski got a $1.76 million signing bonus and a $830,000 playing time bonus but he’s still making the $450,000 minimum salary.
So which other offensive players are making the least, but making the most of it? Here’s our rundown of the best bang for the buck in the league.
The top five:
5. Mike Wallace
Position: Wide Receiver, Pittsburgh Steelers
2011 salary: $480,000
Weekly paycheck: $35,294
Wallace has had at least 70 yards receive in 8 of the team’s 10 games, averaging 17.4 yards per catch. See more
4. Matt Forte
Position: Running Back, Chicago Bears
2011 salary: $600,000
Weekly paycheck: $35,294
Forte has three rushing touchdowns but his 869 yards rushing is only behind Fred Jackson and LeSean McCoy. See more
3. Arian Foster
Position: Running Back, Houston Texans
2011 salary: $525,000
Weekly paycheck: $30,882
In the eight games he has played in this season, Foster only failed to reach a combined 100 yards rushing or receiving in the season opener. See more
2. Aaron Rodgers
Position: Quarterback, Green Bay Packers
2011 salary: $7.5 million
Weekly paycheck: $441,176
Thanks to having Rodgers, the Pack is predicted to defend its Super Bowl title and is using the success to launch a stock sale that will seek $143 million in improvements to Lambeau Field. See more
1. Wes Welker
Position: Wide Receiver, New England Patriots
2011 salary: $2.15 million
Weekly paycheck: $127,647
Welker has pulled in 72 receptions for 1,006 yards receiving to go along with six touchdowns thus far this season. See more
What a pathetic and disgraceful article. As if the Penn St. scandal wasn't enough to illustrate that we are a backwards society (sacrifice kids! Save the almighty college football program!!), this type of article provides more evidence that our societal and humanitarian priorities are deranged, warped, unChristian (side note: I had to throw that one in--yes, the religious Right are nothing but hypocrites), and in a state of regression.
Written by a reporter employed by CNBC.
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=y ... ker_111811
These players aren’t making enough money
By Darren Rovell, CNBC.com Nov 18, 3:49 pm EST
Printable View
Return to Original
tweet61
With the 2011 NFL season halfway over, the first 10 weeks have been marked by injuries, disappointments but also breakout performances. Of this year’s breakout players, many have only been in the league for a few seasons, and for these elite players their current contracts may be working against them.
Although these premier players may not be making all-star salaries, when it comes time for them to negotiate a new contract you can expect their compensation will be more in line with their abilities. This list focuses on identifying underpaid offensive players at skill positions as their stat lines are more quantifiable.
We start with New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, who sits at No. 10 on our list.
Click here for more players
Slideshow: The NFL’s 10 most underpaid players
Gronkowski is an absolute machine, moving his 6-foot-6, 265-pound body with ridiculous agility. In the last four games, against the Cowboys, Steelers, Giants and Jets, Gronkowski has caught at least seven passes and has averaged 95.5 yards a game. Gronkowski got a $1.76 million signing bonus and a $830,000 playing time bonus but he’s still making the $450,000 minimum salary.
So which other offensive players are making the least, but making the most of it? Here’s our rundown of the best bang for the buck in the league.
The top five:
5. Mike Wallace
Position: Wide Receiver, Pittsburgh Steelers
2011 salary: $480,000
Weekly paycheck: $35,294
Wallace has had at least 70 yards receive in 8 of the team’s 10 games, averaging 17.4 yards per catch. See more
4. Matt Forte
Position: Running Back, Chicago Bears
2011 salary: $600,000
Weekly paycheck: $35,294
Forte has three rushing touchdowns but his 869 yards rushing is only behind Fred Jackson and LeSean McCoy. See more
3. Arian Foster
Position: Running Back, Houston Texans
2011 salary: $525,000
Weekly paycheck: $30,882
In the eight games he has played in this season, Foster only failed to reach a combined 100 yards rushing or receiving in the season opener. See more
2. Aaron Rodgers
Position: Quarterback, Green Bay Packers
2011 salary: $7.5 million
Weekly paycheck: $441,176
Thanks to having Rodgers, the Pack is predicted to defend its Super Bowl title and is using the success to launch a stock sale that will seek $143 million in improvements to Lambeau Field. See more
1. Wes Welker
Position: Wide Receiver, New England Patriots
2011 salary: $2.15 million
Weekly paycheck: $127,647
Welker has pulled in 72 receptions for 1,006 yards receiving to go along with six touchdowns thus far this season. See more
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Comments
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
:roll:
and its so difficult being famous.. you dont know jeanwah.. you just dont know..
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
That's insane.
Fuck athletes. They play a god damn game for a living. Who is more important to society? A nurse or a running back? Do athletes, every day they go to work, have the fear and possibility of death staring them right in the face like soldiers, policemen, and firemen do?
Your wife is a nurse and you have these backwards, moronic views? Grotesque.
You're posting on the Pearl Jam forum so clearly you love a rock band. They play music. How much money have you spent on bands to make them millionaires beyond their dreams. I can see you are worked up over the whole NFL salary thing but you need to chill.
You sound like an obvious athlete worshipper.
All members of Pearl Jam should be, and would agree to be I hope, taxed at much higher rates. At MSG 2003, Eddie said that they were going to have to pay a fine for breaking curfew. he said fuck it, because "you [the fans] made us [the band] rich." They are a band, and while they are very important to us on this board, they really are not incredibly important to society as a whole. They are surely not the foundation of good society like nurses and doctors are, or like fireman or public school teachers are.
What a backwards view to place athletes and celebrities--especially those with no talent--on pedestals above all others. It is moronic. Tax them; pump the money back into the system to improve our roads, build more schools and medical centers, invest in energy R&D, etc., etc. My god, what the hell is wrong us?
Would Jesus approve of the structure of this society? he would not, but the moronic religious right believes that Jesus is a gun-toting, overall wearing, pickup driving, Capitalist.
And what "field" (nice pun) do athletes belong to? The medical field? No. The criminal justice field? No. education? No. Civil service? No. They belong in the field of entertainment, or as Americans refer to it, the most important field in existence. American society has an IQ of roughly 43, and it is showing more and more every day.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to finish reading my US Weekly, eating my happy meal, then I have to go to the mall---the nice, obedient, docile consumer that I am--- to do some Xmas shopping, because that is what "God" wants us to celebrate for "His son's" birthday. Then I can't wait to come home, watch the Kardashians, or X Factor, and eat my dinner--a Big Mac, supersized fries and a coke--in front of the boob tube.
Now my dad that delivers hospital supplies to nurses and makes $9 an hr.......different story. Annual raise = .05 cents, a quarter if he is lucky.
Position: Quarterback, Green Bay Packers
2011 salary: $7.5 million
Weekly paycheck: $441,176
Now Aaron is worth every penny!
I have no problem with athletes making big bucks, they dedicate themselves from
wee children to a sport. Often missing out on what other kids do.
They are driven to excel, they train and live their sport.
They have much pain and will have probably future pain
that none of us could even imagine.
Being a new fan of football ...
I really admire them, enjoy what they do and am simply amazed by them.
Athletes rule! Cream of the crop!
1. they put butts in the seats and get people to go to the games, buy the merchandise, buy the beer and buy the food, get people to watch them all on tv, get people to purchase the products that they endorse by companies such as nike, etc. all generating milions and millions of dollars for their owners, the league, and their corporate sponsors. no civil servant is going to generate a million bucks for the hospital where they work and no cop is going to generate a million bucks for their city by writing traffic tickets, and no soldier is going to generate a million bucks over in the desert somewhere where it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to keep them there.
and
2. they are the ones who are willing to pay the price physically, emotionally, and in the public eye for their sport. not all of us are 6 foot 5 inches, can throw a football 60 yards in the air, and run 40 yards in 4.3 seconds. Not all of us can bench press 500 lbs, or drive a golf ball 340 yards, or hit a 100 mile per hour fastball 450 feet, or take multiple leg kicks from shogun rua. 99.5% of us will never the the opportunity because we lack those talents. these people are of freakish talent and they are the best of the best in their chosen sport. and they are extremely lucky to have gotten to that level. they are lucky because they have the talent, the physical attrubutes, and they have had the luck to have avoided career altering or ending injuries and they have avoided the pitfalls that come with elite athletics, drugs and alcohol, legal trouble, temptation by woman and potntially destructive hangers-on etc. in the major leagues there are about 700 baseball players. there are millions of baseball players in this world, and only those 700 are good and lucky enough to be in the majors. these people have had to excel as a youth, excel in high school, excel in college, excel in the minors, all to get the change to play in the majors. the handful of big money players, like jeter, pujols, a-rod, these guys are the best the world has to offer. there are fewer football players and even fewer nba players. these are the most skilled men at their sport in the world.
being an athletic trainer who has worked with many professional athletes, including members of the rams, blues, cardinals, men's professional tennis, and several other nfl and mlb players when i was in college, i can tell you what these guys go through. every play is potentially a catastrophic event. in football they are one play away from a terrible fracture or dislocation, one play away from that final concussion that is going to end their career, and one play away from a catastrophic injury such as a broken neck that will paralyze them and make them unable to live or work or make money for the rest of their lives. i have witnessed first hand what these guys do to themselves and the injuries that they suffer. injuries that just do not happen in the real world outside of sports. torn triceps tendons of of the elbow, ruptured pectoralis muscles, severe head injuries, knee dislocations, tibial and femoral fractures, you name it, i have seen it in my nearly 20 year career. studies show that in professional football some of the blows these guys sustain are of the equivalent force of minor car accidents, multiple times er game. these guys have to get lidocaine injections every sunday before taking the field. these guys play through things that most of us would miss a month of work time for. these guys know that they have a limited time to make their money and they are going to do whatever they can to play one more season. the average career in the nfl is 2 years. the average career in the nhl is about 3 years. and most of these careers are cut short due to injury, or because the guy coming up behind them on the depth chart is that much better. these guys fear being beaten out by their own teammates for their positions, so to keep their starting jobs, they will lie to the physicians and other medical staff and even cheat to do so..
do i believe that they should be made rich for their sacrifices? yes i do to a certain extent. if albert pujols draws 3 million fans to your stadium in 82 games at $50 a ticket or so, he deserves a chunk of that couple a hundred million he brings in. 50 years ago these nfl players played to supplement their regualr jobs as meat packers and played for the love of the game, only to take an injury in a football game that would not allow them to work their normal job anymore. they would become disabled and unable to support their family. they would lose the ability to play and lose their 9-5 job as well with no recourse.. the player's unions are what have given them the lifestyle they enjoy today. BUT, when i see these guys saying they are underpaid, it turns my stomach, because yes these guys asume all of the physical risk, but these people already live an extravagant lifestyle, and they make plenty of money to live on and if they save it or invest it well they will be set up for life... but in my opinion OP is right that soldiers, teachers, civil servants should make much more money in an ideal world. but as sad as it is, it all comes down to economics, and as i said, teachers, soldiers, and cops do not generate wealth for anyone....
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Your response is immature and argument provoking. I won't play your game BUT I will say this:
Whether you like it or not sports are embedded in our society and have been throughout history. Maybe salaries have gotten out of hand and I do hate when athletes complain when they aren't making enough money. i.e. the current NBA situation. Obviously nurses and firemen play a far more important role in our society than the average athlete, I NEVER said they didn't. You hate athletes because they make a lot of money, fine. But what about the Olympic athlete? I'm not talking about the 'Dream Team' basketball player. I'm talking about the athlete who trains their whole life to compete in the Olympics and represent their country with pride. Who take jobs at Home Depot to help fund their training. Do you say "Fuck athletes" to them as well?
Here's a little story for you.
In 1980 gas prices in the United States were at a record high, unemployment was up and American hostages were being held in Iran. The Soviet Union had just invaded Afghanistan and the Cold War was at an all time high. Basically the moral of the country was at an all time low. That winter there was an Olympic games held in Lake Placid, NY. The former USSR (also known as the CCCP) was comprised of athletes who were technically amateurs but but by any other standard were professionals. The United States sent in an Ice Hockey team comprised of current or recently graduated college students. They weren't expected to medal. The Russian ice hockey team had won gold in every Olympics since 1960. A week before the Olympics started the USA and USSR played an exhibtion game in MSG and the Russians beat the Americans 10-3. I was at that game by the way. I'm sure you know the rest of the story which has become known as 'The Miracle on Ice'. Those boys beat the highly superior Russians and went on to win the Gold medal. They brought pride to a nation and restored our moral. How? Through sports. Sometimes sports can bind a nation and transcend modern day life.
Do you say 'Fuck athletes' to those boys as well?
nicely done. sports teams are out of control. and yes things and or people on here can be grotesque.
"Hear me, my chiefs!
I am tired; my heart is
sick and sad. From where
the sun stands I will fight
no more forever."
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
Instead, value is subjective. It is based on human valuation and is subject to the laws of supply and demand. It just so happens that there is a much smaller supply of ball players than nurses, firefighters, etc... There is also a really high demand. People then voluntarily exchange their money for these players' services. If millions of individuals value these sports enough to give their money to the enterprise, then I don't see anything wrong with that. I don't watch sports personally and therefore I don't value them at all. I value healthcare workers and firefighters much more, but that's just my subjective valuation.
I'm sorry. This argument needs to sit in the penalty box a couple of rounds.
It is guilty of the fallacy of not staying on topic, and of appealing to emotions irrelevantly
The debate at hand relates clearly to high-paid athletes, not olympic athletes.
sport is war in microcosm.. and this is a perfect example. and no i wouldnt say fuck 'em. but i will say NO ONE is worth the tens of millions some of those athletes are paid. sport has become a business and athletes just the a commodity.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
But I still tend to agree with whygohome. They don't deserve to make nearly as much as they make, especially relative to others in the world. I understand they they more directly bring in more money than people like civil servants, but that's a function of our fucked up society and economic system. They don't really work harder than most people and their jobs are WAY less important.
I don't blame them for taking the money. But I don't think they should whine about it. And I do think they should be taxed more and be more philanthropic. And, mostly, I think our society should stop being so stupid that we actually think they're valuable and throw so much money at them. Well, mostly really, I think this has to change at a systemic level in addition to the individual level.
I wonder what would happen if all the sports owners/leagues agreed to pay athletes less across the board, so it's not like they could go to another team to get paid more money. (Of course the should also agree to pay themselves less and charge the public less.) But would professional sports cease to exist? Would all these supposedly great athletes just stop playing and become teachers or something? I doubt it. They'd still play. Because they don't really need that much money.
As has already been mentioned, though, I think one thing that's really important is for the public to start holding these people accountable. Why on fucking earth do we (and by "we" I mean you, because I sure as hell don't give my money to professional sports teams).... why do we continue to support rapist, pedophiles, animal torturers, etc?? It's just mind-boggling to me. Not only do we pay them millions, but we give them a free pass to do anything they want, seemingly no matter how terrible it is. We tell them they don't have to play by the rules - not the rules of law or even of human decency. We practically encourage them to do this shit when the public agrees to still support - and pay - them. Shameful.
towards who and what they are since childhood ... grueling work
so
why should it matter to the masses... Enjoy their amazing...ness.
It is a self sufficient industry. Same with any celebs, look at what they get
for making a movie.
Shall we take a look at the bankers too ... yikes!
It seems very small to say others aren't worth what they get paid
is it more than envy?
Some would say the plastic surgeon across the street shouldn't be making
millions a year for doing boob jobs. But he does and his customers think it worth it
and their hubby's too
I have meet a few doctors and nurses I might put on the worthless list,
just cause they are a doctor or a nurse does not make them a greater human being
yet they are making top dollar living in million dollar mansions
driving Lexus.
Welcome to the haves and listen to the have nots saying they shouldn't have it.
It's called the market, people. Value is something that is always a subjective, not an objective. So, while it seems gross to see athletes complain about not making more than they already do, it is even grosser to see the executives running the show make out more on the backs of the athletes and then treat them as disposable after retirement when they may need medical care for injuries accumulated over the years playing their sport and making people money (see the NFL and how their retirees are treated). I can bet there are a lot of people here who would not like to see someone else getting rich off of their hard work and performance.
Is it sad that our soldiers, etc are not taken care of like they should be? Yes, but to take that out on some other group of people that is unrelated is simply unproductive and counterintuitive. You want certain groups of people who you hold in higher regard to be taken care of? Then keep in mind that your values are yours and others may not hold those exact same values and instead of complaining about how the world doesn't conform to your view, actually do something productive about it instead of complainging about others. For example, take to task the people who are making it difficult for soldiers to collect on the benefits they were promised, instead of just pointing out how you think one segment of society makes too much money and you don't like that kind of thing.
and that don't even touch the indorsements...nike visa etc.....
Godfather.
I have no problem with player contract salaries. Their being there generates a lot of revenue that goes into many different parts of the economy. You cannot equate a teacher or doctor to a basketball player... you can equate a team owner to a corporate CEO. The NBA player can be compared to a movie star or a top selling singer/musician.
Hail, Hail!!!