In defense of "greedy" athletes

A common complain about athletes is "lack of loyalty" or how they care more about money than their team.

I look at it this way: as a pro-athlete, you're constantly one injury away from being traded from your team or not playing at all. Therefor it's in the player's best interest to try and make as much money as possible before such a thing occurs. Also, an athlete's career typically ends at a relatively young age; most athletes retire around their late 30s, when most athletes can no longer compete at the level required for their sport.

Also:

"Loyalty" always seems to be one way: good players are expected by their fans to be "loyal", but if an injury hampers their ability to play, the fans no longer care about the player. This is also true if a player starts aging, or for whatever reason, can't play as well as they used to. "Loyalty" usually seems to be one way; players are expected to be loyal to fans, but not the other way around.

Ultimately, sports is just like any other business: it's all about how much money that player can make the team. If they start underperform, that player gets canned.

Given this, it's no surprise that athletes look out for themselves. No one else will.

When I was teenager, I remember reading sports articles on Patrick Ewing, making the case why he should be benched for the New York Knicks. Never mind that he was honored as one of the 50 greatest NBA players of all time; his time had passed. Out with the old. The Knicks eventually traded arguably the greatest center they've ever had, who could still play well, just not as a superstar anymore. No one cared about "loyalty" then.

When they say their team, they are actually talking about the team's owner.

Of course the fans do not understand that.

That's all very well, but taking millions of dollars a year (or month!) for kicking a bit of leather or punching someone in the face still seems a bit much, to me. Many of them could, in fact, already retire on a single season's salary, and amply at that. In the lower leagues your arguments are valid, but I don't think anyone bedgrudges the left back of Little Hamlet Rovers his paycheck. Ronaldo, OTOH...

@Shallow-Blue

How much money should the team owners be making? What does not go to the athletes goes to the pockets of the owners.

@shallow-blue said
That's all very well, but taking millions of dollars a year (or month!) for kicking a bit of leather or punching someone in the face still seems a bit much, to me. Many of them could, in fact, already retire on a single season's salary, and amply at that. In the lower leagues your arguments are valid, but I don't think anyone bedgrudges the left back of Little Hamlet Rovers his paycheck. Ronaldo, OTOH...

Valid point; athletes in higher-level team sports can indeed afford to remain loyal.

But again: imagine you as an athlete pass up a lucrative contract or a chance to play on a much better team, out of loyalty to your team's fans. Then imagine you get an injury two or three years later, and the fans start to demand you get traded or let go. Can you imagine the betrayal you'd feel at the fans wanting to get rid of you after you sacrificed a better opportunity for them?

I don't see why an athlete should pass up better opportunities, just to please masses of people they'll never meet or even see, since most viewers would watching them on TV.

Also, fans come and go; a fan base can drastically change after just a few years. The idea of a team's "fans" is an abstract concept; not worth giving up a better opportunity for, unless it's something an athlete truly wants, under no compulsion from anyone to remain "loyal".

@shallow-blue said
That's all very well, but taking millions of dollars a year (or month!) for kicking a bit of leather or punching someone in the face still seems a bit much, to me. Many of them could, in fact, already retire on a single season's salary, and amply at that. In the lower leagues your arguments are valid, but I don't think anyone bedgrudges the left back of Little Hamlet Rovers his paycheck. Ronaldo, OTOH...

Well, sports celebrities are basically performers. They're paid for performing. They drive ad revenue through TV ratings. It's worth it to owners to pay them exorbitantly, because they make even more money off of them. Is it not fair for the actors to get paid for bringing money in to their owners... no, I mean employers, yeah, that's it.

@eladar said
When they say their team, they are actually talking about the team's owner.

Of course the fans do not understand that.

Hadn't you added the silly attack against all fans (by implication) you probably wouldn't have gained three red thumbs...

You also are on a very US-centered view in a lot of countries mots sports teams don't have the single "owner" or "investor".

@ponderable said
Hadn't you added the silly attack against all fans (by implication) you probably wouldn't have gained three red thumbs...

You also are on a very US-centered view in a lot of countries mots sports teams don't have the single "owner" or "investor".

So you are saying your athletes are greedy millionaires?

@eladar said
So you are saying your athletes are greedy millionaires?

No. I wasn't saying that at all.

I said you offended a lot of fans who do understand how capitalism works.
The team is of course only the facade of a commercial undertaking...

In Germayn by the way clubs have no "owners" in the way US teams or some other European teams have.

@ponderable said
No. I wasn't saying that at all.

I said you offended a lot of fans who do understand how capitalism works.
The team is of course only the facade of a commercial undertaking...

In Germayn by the way clubs have no "owners" in the way US teams or some other European teams have.

This thread is about greedy millionaire athletes. The example was a US athlete. I continued in the spirit of the thread.

I guess you were offended. I do not know why, short of something petsonal.

@eladar said
This thread is about greedy millionaire athletes.

I put "greedy" in quotes deliberately, to mean "so-called" greedy athletes. When athletes are allegedly disloyal and move to a different team, they're often accused of greed.

I wasn't actually calling those athletes greedy.

@vivify said
I put "greedy" in quotes deliberately, to mean "so-called" greedy athletes. When athletes are allegedly disloyal and move to a different team, they're often accused of greed.

I wasn't actually calling those athletes greedy.

Those who are viewed as greedy are the American variety, not the European variety as ponderable pointed out.

@eladar said
So you are saying your athletes are greedy millionaires?

In some respects,you can put sports stars in the same group as pop stars and celebrities.
There are numerous stories of famous people who have been exposed to vast wealth early in their lives and adopt the "playboy/girl" lifestyle spending their earnings on luxuries and a lifestyle they cannot maintain.
After a while, they become addicted to that way of life and can't give it up.
More often than not, they end up in poverty.
Wealth is a dangerous thing.
Such people would do well to identify the difference between "want" and "need"

@venda

Back in the late 70's to mid 80's the Dallas Cowboys had a star running back named Tony Dorsett. He retired, but had to return to football because he blew all of his money. His return year he played for the Denver Broncos.