Parker and I were talking yesterday about an article that I’d written for The Tech – MIT’s student newspaper – back when we were there. It seems their archive link is busted, so I’ll post the article here for posterity.

Interesting note: the article was published on September 11, 2001. *shudder*

The Athletic Enterprise

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in Qualcomm Stadium (formerly the glorious Jack Murphy Stadium) enjoying a terrific pre-season football match-up between my beloved Chargers and the Niners. Things couldn’t have been any better, really. It was a beautiful day, my chest paint hadn’t really started smearing yet, my ballpark frank had just the right amount of relish, and the Chargers were winning. Smiling to myself, I reached for my beverage. Just as I felt the pleasant coolness of my plastic cup, the familiar sound of a whining voice passed right through the cheering of my buddies: “I can’t believe those meatheads make that much money. I could do what they do. It’s not THAT hard.” A firm believer in the theory that ignorance is America’s biggest opponent, I immediately became sickened by this lady’s opinion, and fearful for our country’s future all at once. How could she do this? Why did she have to ruin the rest of the game for me? Why do my buddies insist on rubbing my hair every time the Chargers connect for a gain? Am I the only one that gets it? Does anybody else see that professional sports represent the epitome of capitalism? Probably not. Which is why I feel it’s my moral responsibility to share this nugget of truth with the sports-crazed student body of M.I.T.

As we begin, let’s take a small quiz in the spirit of higher education.
   
Which of the following statements is said most often in America today?
A.    “Bill Gates makes way too much money.”
B.    “Successful lawyers make way too much money.”
C.    “Musicians make way too much money.”
D.    “Professional athletes make way too much money.”

Clearly, the answer is D. There is no profession in America as publicly scrutinized for compensation irregularities as that of professional athletics. Yet, is a professional athlete really ANY different from Bill Gates or Johnny Cochran? Sure, Bill Gates runs a software giant, and Cochran keeps killers out of jail, while athletes score touchdowns, hit homeruns, shoot hat tricks, or nail three-pointers. But specifics notwithstanding, there is no fundamental difference in the reason these people make so much money: they are all very good at what they do. But athletes’ salaries are consistently questioned because we, the members of society, are collectively jealous of a situation that we continue to support.

One of my favorite arguments from sports opponents is, “Athletes don’t do anything productive for society. Doctors, teachers, nurses, policemen – they should be making millions, not athletes.” Though I happen to agree with the notion that each of the aforementioned professionals may be underpaid, the argument does not checkout as valid. Personal opinion or implicit value really don’t mean a thing in a capitalistic environment. Let’s compare, for one second, water and Beanie Babies. We absolutely cannot survive without water; it is essential to human life (most life for that matter). On the other hand, we have Beanie Babies. Though many may argue that life cannot go on without them, I can assure you that one CAN survive without Beanie Babies. So, why is a gallon of water so much cheaper than a Beanie Baby? Because the implicit value of a commodity, or service, has no relevance in our economy; how much of that product or service we demand dictates it all.

This may come as a shock to many, but the United States of America – the wonderful nation of freedom and hope, the light on the hill, the place where dreams are made – is a capitalistic country! Supply and demand inherently regulate cost and availability of nearly everything in our society (economists, please cut me slack – I know there’s much more to it). Thus, when all of us baseball fans trot down to Fenway Park, purchase tickets, buy jerseys, eat ballpark franks, and chant, “Yankees Suck,” we’re demanding all-star baseball players! Believe it or not, every time you tune your television set into a game at home, you’re contributing to that market as well (the Yankees received an estimated $52.5 million for local broadcast rights in 1997). “But, there are thousands of professional athletes in the world. Why do we have to pay so much for a few?” I don’t know how to say this any other way, but teams aren’t in the league to lose. You want them to win, you pay money for them to win, and they shill it out so that you keep coming back. It’s business! Similarly, athletes haven’t spent their entire lives perfecting their athletic prowess so that people can pat them on the back and say, “Great job, pal. You were super tonight.” When the day’s over, just like anyone else, they want to take a paycheck home. It just so happens that, if they’re that good, their paycheck is a lot bigger than yours or mine.

Perhaps the most amusing of all the arguments against professional athletics is, “How can we pay these athletes millions of dollars a year, when this country has people on welfare?” You’ve used a key word: ‘we.’ I don’t know how ‘we’ can continue to do it. But I’ll tell you one thing for sure, ‘we’ aren’t going to stop paying them so much money unless ‘we’ stop watching their games on television, being patrons at their games, buying their hats, their jerseys, etc. What about this? “How can we pay these farmhands hundreds of dollars a year, when this country has people on welfare?” I haven’t heard that question in a while.

In closing, I’d like to ask one last question of our academic community. If we detract from the success of some, in order to compensate for the lack of success of others, what kind of economic system would we have then? If the government controls professional sports, instead of the consumer, and disperses the money where it sees fit, are we capitalist? No. Such a notion is the first step toward communism and socialism. But, in the spirit of such a thought, I’ve got an idea. How about we completely take control of Major League Baseball. Since some players are worth hundreds of millions, let’s take them out of the picture, and replace each one with the equivalent number of workers at minimum wage. Now that we have those people off of welfare, we can put them to work making baskets or something useful in the stadiums during game time. Of course, people will continue to pay for tickets, and will undoubtedly watch it on television – after all, we’re paying money to support the less fortunate. If it goes really well, we can even have new jerseys made with the names of the most productive basket weavers (so long as they don’t get a pay raise for their productivity)! I just hope Sports Center will continue to cover the MLB.

technorati tags:mit, thetech, sports, salaries, athletes, pay, politics