Professional Athletes Get Paid Too Much

By: Kori Wedeking

     Professional athletes make a ridiculous amount of money. Clayton Kershaw, a baseball player for the Los Angeles Dodgers, got paid $30 million in one year. Phil Mickelson, a golfer, got paid $50.8 million in one year. Kobe Bryant, a basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers, made $25 million in one year. Cristiano Ronaldo, a Madrid Soccer player, made $79 million in just one year. These numbers are crazy to think about and might be too high.
     Professional athletes put a lot of time and effort into playing sports. They spend countless hours each day trying to improve. They put their body’s through a lot of hard workouts. They go on certain diets that probably are not the most appetizing. They have to have a good, tough mentality every day. They have to sacrifice a ton, including spending a lot of time away from their families, friends, and home. Despite all this, should professional athletes be making millions of dollars each year?
     I do not think that professional athletes should make quite this much money. There are people in the military, policemen, firemen, and plenty of other hardworking people that get paid far too little. The average salary of someone in the military who is sacrificing their life for their country is only $20,000 to $30,000. This is a microscopic amount of money compared to the millions of dollars made by professional athletes. People are risking their lives and do not make as much as people playing a game. There are even surgeons who have years and years of college and internships who still do not make nearly as much as professional athletes. Along with this, there are millions of people with cancer, autism, down syndrome, and many other diseases and disorders. I think that some of the money used to pay professional could be given to charities to find cures and help those struggling to pay hospital bills.
     Even though professional athletes do work very hard, I do not think that they deserve quite as much money as they are earning. If the amount of money professional athletes made per year was reduced, there would be extra money to be spent. That money could be used to raise the salaries of important, low paying jobs. That money could be used to help find cures for diseases. That money could help people struggling to keep up with hospital bills. There are thousands of beneficial ways that the extra money from professional athletes could be used, so maybe it is time that we consider reducing professional athletes’ salaries to do so.