The Amount of Money in Sports

            Have you ever stopped to think about how much money gets put into sports? Whether you’re talking about attending a minor league sporting, buying sports apparel in support of your favorite team, or management shelling out massive dough to pick up the all-star that is going to guarantee a championship; too much money is in the sports world. As an avid sports fan I understand the argument that the money is needed but I find some of the figures just ridiculous when it comes to paying athletes.

            First off, why do we need to pay these athletes millions of dollars to play their hobby? I know plenty of people that do what they love for countless hours a day and they aren’t making a dime. Lets take a look at an example. Washington National’s just signed Max Sherzer to a 7-year contract worth 210 million dollars. The man is 30 years old and just had a career best season winning the Cy Young award which goes to the best pitcher of the year. The fact that the Nationals are willing to pay him 7 figures until he is 37 isn’t what I find most shocking though. What I find most shocking is that he will be making 35 million dollars each of his last three seasons with his earnings increasing every year starting at 10 million. That’s half of his contract when he should be close to retiring! An additional note for those who don’t follow baseball very closely, most pitchers only pitch in anywhere from twenty to thirty games. Last year Sherzer pitched in twenty-three games so you can do the math and figure out how much he is earning for each game he pitched. The counter argument can be made that he is being paid for much more than just the game he pitches and works hard seven months of the year, but when compared to how much the average American makes in lifetime the large sum isn’t needed. Over an adults working lifetime on average, people with master’s degrees only earn 2.5 million dollars. This distribution doesn’t seem right or fair to those that weren’t born with freakish athleticism.

            Not only do these athletes make the ridiculous amounts of money but also they don’t know what to do with it either. After retiring for two years from the NFL, seventy-eight percent of players have gone bankrupt or have financial trouble. In the NBA sixty percent of players go broke within five years of leaving the game. This is an issue and the leagues are trying to fix it. The National Football League offers its players a financial education program to teach players about money management, insurance, tax planning and many other topics that are essential. The scariest thing about the numbers is many of the athletes don’t have a back up career as never acquired a degree. What do they do after all their money is gone and they’re too old to return to football?

            There are many ways to go about fixing this problem but I personally believe we need to take the pressure away from the athletes and reduce their contracts. They don’t need the money, the mansions, or the cars, what they need to do is learn responsibility. Lets stop the multimillion dollar contracts and take a little of the pressure off. I would bet their lives would be just as joyous and others quality of life could possibly increase. There may be more to the financials of the sports industry than I understand I can only see this problem getting larger as time goes on and I hope it doesn’t take away from the love of the game.

Why To Consider Living In Australia

            Everyone says that the United States of America is the greatest country in the world but I’m starting to reconsider. It seems like every action that our country takes is wrong, we can’t seem to elect the right president for our country’s needs, and we are always involved in war. Does this seem like a country that has it all figured out? I’m not saying that I don’t love the United States of America and all that it stands for lets try to consider some alternative places to live or possibly visit for an extended period of time. Personally I believe that one of the coolest country to live in would be Australia.

            The land down under has to be one of the coolest places in the world that invites everyone that lives there to enter into a world of relaxation and happiness. According to Forbes’ rankings Australia is the third happiest country in the world while the United States is ranked tenth. Apparently Disney world isn’t enough to bring a whole country to the happiest place in the world or but it does always produce a good time. For those looking to get to move and not just visit and love money, minimum wage is higher. In the United States the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour but its more than double in Australia. The national minimum wage is $16.87 per hour. Although the market isn’t the same in both countries Australia hasn’t been in a recession in over twenty years. Nearly half of the people in Australia are thriving financially which puts them at eighth internationally while the United States doesn’t rank in the top ten.

 Second the animals and wildlife can’t be rivaled by any other part of the world. Kangaroos, kolas, platypuses, wallabies, and wombats all take habitat in the outback of Australia.  I’ll admit that koalas are my favorite animals so this statement is bias but that doesn’t change the fact that these animals are awesome. There are more kangaroos than people; koalas are the most relaxed animals on the planet and everyone is jealous of the amount that they sleep (over 18 hours), and the Great Barrier Reef houses more than 1,500 species of fish. Australia in total has more close to 6,000 species of animals and animals of which more than eighty percent are unique. The Outback is the place to go and at least visit if you are an animal lover or exotic landscape.

If all that doesn’t convince you to at least visit Australia, go to try to pick their accent. Everyone is fascinated when they hear someone talking in an Australian accent and is a great conversation starter. I am proud to be an American and will support the United States until the day I die but I enjoy thinking about other places to travel to and possibly live in.

Rape Needs to be Taken More Seriously

In Syney’s blog post she attacks a subject that should not be taken lightly, rape allegations. She specially referenced an article where a woman accused a celebrity of rape nearly ruining his career. Upon hearing about it he filed a lawsuit against her after she admitted the claims were false. In the end the returning lawsuit had to be dropped because they didn’t want to deter women from filing rape reports because they don’t want to be counter-sued. I agree with Sydney that this was not the right course of action and people should be punished for the false claims.

            After reading Sydney’s post my mind went straight to the situation that arose at the end of last year involving the University of Virginia and the article released by Rolling Stone. The article in short explained a situation where a girl was raped at a fraternity house by a group of brothers a few years prior during her freshman year. She explained in detail how she was tricked into being sexually assaulted by many of the brothers and how she didn’t want to come out with the story as she didn’t want the attention but she felt something should be done. Everyone had heard of the story and it as time went on the truth came out. As it came to be known almost all of the facts didn’t match up. The person she described didn’t exist, the dates didn’t match up, and the description of the house was completely inaccurate. Peoples lives’ were put at risk because of this story. My brother went to high school and is very good friends with the president of Phi Kappa Psi, the alleged fraternity, and he said that every member felt scared for their safety. They didn’t want to go to class because they knew they were targets, they couldn’t sleep in their beds because people were constantly vandalizing the house and all of this occurred because someone made up a story. I find the whole situation sickening.

            As for what we should do with those falsely report rape, that’s not for me to decide. It impacts everyone differently but both people walking away free isn’t fair. Countless athletes are accused of rape every year. Names such as Ben Roethlisberger, Jameis Winston, Kobe Bryant and many others have all been involved in sexual assault allegations. They are easy to target because they are famous, have too much money to know what to do with, and sometimes don’t make the best decisions (looking at you Jameis). Rape is a serious matter and we should respect those that have the courage to come out when a traumatic experience happens instead of using it to get attention.

Response to Matthew

Matthew in his blog brings up one of the most controversial topics of the past few decades, capital punishment. Within sharing his thoughts and what sparked the idea for the post was the actions of Jordan in response to ISIS. As someone who pays very little attention to the news, I was shocked to learn about Jordan’s reactions. I personally feel that is too strong of a reaction from a country that is responsible for the safety of all its citizens. Are we not past the eye for an eye concept? I can understand that they were on death row and their time was short but public executions don’t solve anything.

            Returning back to the main focus of the post. I do believe that life the right to life should be inalienable and the government shouldn’t have the power to take it away. Matthew did a wonderful job presenting statistics showing that it isn’t the correct way to solve this. The fact that the murder rates are less in states that don’t condone capital punishment should be able to speak for itself and state that murders aren’t afraid to die. Every state should outlaw it immediately.

            Coincidently enough, two weeks ago in my philosophy class we watched a movie surrounding capital punishment. The movie, The Life of David Gale staring Kevin Spacey, addresses some of its flaws. I won’t give away what happens but the main character is fighting to eliminate the death penalty and presents, in my opinion, a valid argument. Why are we killing people rather than giving them a chance? Part of the movie attacks taking innocent lives and with the amount of people that are executed, how many were falsely accused? We all can agree that it is inhumane to burn someone alive and put it on the Internet but does it make it right to kill a prisoner in response? To me no, but everyone is entitled to his or her own views. I’m going to be interested to see what happens in the upcoming weeks and I pray that all out war doesn’t ensue.

Response to John

I feel like John brought up a lot of good points that made me reevaluate the way I think about politics and my own beliefs. I feel that I should start off with saying that as bad as it is, I pay very little attention to politics. Last year I was given my first real experience with politics.  In my government class I had to take tests to see where I stand in my political views, but beyond that I don’t pay much attention to politics. One of my biggest faults when dealing with politics is I never watch the news or read the headlines. Unfortunately I am very uninformed with politics but I feel a lot of the points John are correct and relevant. One thing I had never thought about before was how very few young people think about America’s debt and its impact on our generation. Everyone has heard the statistics but very few know what they mean for us. We do our day to day activates without a real sense of money and its effects with taxation. I also agree with John that since look beyond the economy that is the reason more people lean to the left because they are the more controversial topics and easier to cover. 

A couple things I didn’t like the about the article is his assumption that he is correct and the fact that he failed to comment on the other characteristics dealing with being a Republican. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion but when it comes to politics I don’t feel that any one person is right or wrong. Politics is how one views the world and how they feel issues should best be addressed. Sorry John but that is arrogant to say that you are correct as a republican because you think your views are the correct way to solve issues.  Also what other views do you share with the Republican Party? A relation to a political party is about much more than a view on the economy. In the end I agree that our generation has a lot to think before identifying with a party and we need to start being more responsible with our thoughts of how the economy affects our lives.