The Rebel Faction

To make the blanket statement that athletes don't deserve to get paid what they do with little reasoning at all just doesn't make sense. Sure doctors and teachers are as important a part of any community as there is. The fact remains that nearly anyone has the capacity to enter one of these positions while becoming a professional athlete is something that people work literally their whole lives to do and in most cases fail.

Do you know how many years of school it takes to become a teacher? Or a doctor? Do you know how expensive that is?

Regardless, comparing athletes to doctors isn't a logical comparisson. It's like comparing apples and hot dogs.

Demo just used it because he thinks it prove his point.

Are actors useless too Demo? Musicians? Writers?

In the sense that they don't actually provide any neccessary facets of life to mankind, yes. And I never said that I was in favour of actors getting paid the ammount of money they do. But we're talking about sports, not actors. Not musicians.

Writers, on the other hand, are an important part of our culture as we know it, and imo are entitled to whatever they earn from their books. Most writers are not paid in the millions of dollars per year, anyway, so the comparison is a rather poor one.

The rest of your post, Ahnk, and yours Zell, while all well and good, doesn't say much. None of that justifies their being paid as much as they are. And obviously a salary cap is not an instant fix-all solution, but it's still a neccessary step. An athlete may work all their lives to earn a spot on an NHL team. How old is the average NHL player. Can we say 30?

Their contribution to society is some mild entertainment. I can watch a local hockey team do the same thing for a fraction of the cost. I can read a book for free. So, really, an NHL player's contribution to entertainment is close to zero. All you have to do to realize this is look at the lack of NHL hockey this year, and notice that people are hardly rioting in the streets for lack of something better to do. If the NHL were to suddenly vanish, people would adapt.

Okay, so the average NHL player is 30. How old is, say, your average neurosurgeon? Granted, it's a rare doctoral position, but it's a very, very important one. They make, on average, $300 000 USD per year. Pretty decent, right?

Except when you pause to consider that it takes a minimum of 14 years to become one. The average is somewhere closer to 20 years. That means that your average neurosurgeon, if he or she goes to school straight after graduating, is 32 years old. Most, of course, would be 38.

Saying that "almost anyone" has the capacity to become a Doctor is an entirely foolish statement. Certainly many people have the knowledge to earn a Doctorate, but they also have to have a passion and desire to do it. The same is true of sports. Any number of people could, concievably, become an NHL player. But they simply don't want to.

No hard work alone doesn't justify being paid millions. The fact that people pay $50 a pop to come watch them play does. It's basic economics..

That's cause and effect, not justification. And it's not entirely accurate, either. I could just as easily say that ticket prices are so high because athletes are being paid so much. And that is, strictly speaking, closer to the truth. In order to keep their players happy and mantain their profit margins, owners have to increase prices. While some of this can be blamed on the owners' greed, it's proportional to the increase in player salary.

And Deimos you brought up another great point, not only do the franchises and players contribute back to their own community but they also create thousands of jobs.

Nice thought, but irrelevent. NHL franchises would still create jobs regardless of whether the players are paid $10 million or $100 000 dollars. The contribution to community is not proprtional to the ammount players are paid, it's a side effect of the presence of the franchise.

To make the blanket statement that athletes don't deserve to get paid what they do with little reasoning at all just doesn't make sense. Sure doctors and teachers are as important a part of any community as there is...

That's your reasoning right there. Listen. A doctor has the potential to directly save lives on a daily basis. A hockey player does not. Why do you think in the wake of the Boxing Day disaster the world was clamouring to send Doctors to the region, and not hockey players?

No "professional" athlete is worth the money they are paid. Pure and simple.

But we're talking about sports, not actors. Not musicians.

Fair enough. Why, then, do you keep bringing up doctors and teachers? Neither of those are athletic careers.

Regardless, comparing athletes to doctors isn't a logical comparisson. It's like comparing apples and hot dogs.

That's a pretty ignorant statement, Ahnk. If you consider them both professions, than it's an entirley valid comparison.

How is the comparisson of athletes to doctors more valid then the comparisson of athletes to actors?

Because you think it proves your point.

Okay, well, fine. Being a doctor is good. If your standard for living well is doctors, then what shall we do with the nurses? The lawyers? The politicans and the businessmen? Shall we cap their salary? "Oh sorry Mr. Oil Magnate, but I don't consider you relevant, give me all your money". The world doesn't work like that Demo, you know that. People in a free market society are allowed to make whatever people feel they are worth.

Should Paris Hilton be rich and famous? No. Is she? Yes.

The comparisson between doctors and athletes is fucking bullshit, so stop making it. If you want to compare atheletes compare them to artists.

Because the bottom line is that sports teams build two arenas in two cities with staffs of thousands, training and coaching staffs of around 2 hundred, and all of those people and buildings support not only the sports teams but community events and concerts which bring entertainment to the people and money to the local revenue.

Can musicians say the same? How big is the arena in Naponee, where Avril Lavine calls home? Medicine Hat? Trois Rivers? Coquitlam?

Can DOCTORS say the same?

Okay, so the average NHL player is 30.

The average NHL player retires at 28. That's an average of under ten years playing in the NHL, BTW. Some play longer, and some play nothing.

How old is, say, your average neurosurgeon? Granted, it's a rare doctoral position, but it's a very, very important one. They make, on average, $300 000 USD per year. Pretty decent, right?
Except when you pause to consider that it takes a minimum of 14 years to become one. The average is somewhere closer to 20 years. That means that your average neurosurgeon, if he or she goes to school straight after graduating, is 32 years old. Most, of course, would be 38.

Every hospital in a large city maintains 1 or 2 full time neurosurgeons, plus many who work as specialists on call in regions. So we're talking, in North America alone, at least 2500 of these guys. And they can work until their bodies begin to decay, in their early fifties. So about ten years or so. Now, there are 660 players in the NHL with about 1200 or so in their farm teams, and no one on the farm makes over $300,000. So 660 guys compared to an estimate of 2500. Which is the elite career, again?

Demo, it takes a minimum of 11 years of hockey to even get a sniffle at the NHL, and the majority (about 60%) of people who get drafted will play less then 5 games in the big league. 330 players are drafted every year, and with 660 the maximum size the league will ever have playing, the majority of those are going straight to rot in Europe, making less then $50,000 a season for the most part. That's still decent money but the cost of living in Europe is pretty high, and the travel is excrutiating. In any case, of those 330 players, the league will see about 30 make a full time career playing hockey for a million dollars a year. That's 30, compared to 2500.

But your comparrison to doctors on a merit basis is still faulty. So let's talk about a type of doctor at the top of the worth chart. Cometic surgeons. These guys make way, way more then hockey players, work a much less grueling schedule, and yet you say "Doctor doctor ra ra ra!" Well, not all doctors are as useful as you feel them and not all athletes are as useless as you make them.

You yourself talked about how dangerous hockey (and other pro sports) can be. Why, exactly, are we paying people millions of dollars to hurt other people?

I could answer this, but I don't think you'd understand. So I'll let it lie.

Oh, right. Because for the low-ball crowd out there, this is "entertainment".

Wow. WOW. The baffling stupidity of that statement is outrageous, and shows me that posting in this thread is really a waste of time as you are both close minded and a simple, short-sighted asshole.

BTW, doctors lick ass.

I believe Sean just toasted Demos on a nice long hotdog stick. Very nice points, Ahnk, concerning the amount of people actually making multiple millions of dollars.

Titus:

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I believe Sean just toasted Demos on a nice long hotdog stick. Very nice points, Ahnk, concerning the amount of people actually making multiple millions of dollars.

If that's sarcasm, which I think it is, you're right, I did not touch on the hockey or football or baseball players making multiple millions of dollars. For a pretty simple reason; NO ONE HERE IS ARGUING THAT ATHELETES ARE NOT OVERPAID. Demos is arguing that athletes are useless worthless wastes of money, and while they are overpaid, I will argue that they are usefull.

The primary purpose of him comparing doctors to atheletes is because doctors are more usefull. I am not disputing that at all. I am merely trying to point out that atheletes are more then just hard bodies covered in bling bling. They work in a dangerous profession that provides entertainment and economic income for more then just themselves.

While we can say that players are overpaid, Demos argues that they are useless and should be taken out into the streets and executed. My position is that hockey, like all businesses, is controlled by the owners and not the players. Take a look at this list:

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/NHL/2004/12/19/790138-sun.html

Here's the best one.

NO. 5 -- SERGEI FEDOROV
Clause for concern: 'Canes' six-year, $38M offer sheet with one sneaky bonus

Having sat out most of the season without a new contract, Fedorov was pushed to the forefront Feb. 26, 1998 when he signed an offer sheet with the Carolina Hurricanes.

The contract was a six-year, $38-million pact that had an amazing signing bonus that gave him $16 million in the first season alone, in which he played only 21 games. Moreover, it included a crazy $12 million bonus if the team reached the Western Conference final.

Detroit won the Cup that year but there was no such chance for the Hurricanes, who were playing to near-empty houses. Plus, it was no secret Carolina owner Peter Karmanos Jr. was trying to hit Detroit cheque-signer Michael Illitch in the wallet.

The fact this lockout is to save teams like Carolina makes it even more foolish, doesn't it?

The Bobby Holik one is another example of managerial incompetence.

While there's no doubt that players like money, owners really have no issue throwing it around either. And while everyone agrees that players need to take a hit, consider that the NHLPA in their negotiations offered an immediate 24% roll back and a 20% cut in the inflationary practices, and a 20% payroll tax on high payroll teams. That was not acceptable. Tell me this, if your boss asked you to take a 30% drop in pay, how would YOU feel? And the players were okay losing that much salary, but it wasn't enough.

Hard to take the side of people who say "24% of your annual income? Fuck you, we want 50%!"