Outrageous

In the 22-23 basketball season, the highest paid male rookie player earned $11 million in his first year. That is outrageous enough in my book.

How much will Catilyn Clark make in her first year as a rookie player in Women's National Basketball Association? $76k plus change.

Ms Clark scored the highest number of basketball shots for males or females in her college career. Because of her the women's basketball tournament had more TV views than the mem's national basketball tournament,

Thia is beyond outrageous. What is the word I am looking for?

Comments

  • Obscene?

    I often jib at the use of the word *earned* when I hear of these incredible sums of money. *Paid* is more accurate IMHO.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Sexist.
  • Yes, certainly.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    Possibly different for sports people than business. In sports, top performers are at their peak and getting paid the big bucks for only a few years, it takes years of hard work on very low income to reach that standard, and as they get older with injuries or just wearing out they'll no longer be able to perform as well and their income from playing will fall. So, high salaries can be partly justified because they're earned for only a few years rather than across decades. Of course, even after retirement some will get lucrative jobs as pundits on TV and through promotional deals. I think a comparison across lifetime incomes might be more informative than annual incomes, especially for sports people where that income may vanish very quickly.

    In the UK the average income is somewhere around £25k per annum, across a 50y working life that would come out at about £1.25m. So, let's say most people who can work full time for 50y will expect a lifetime income of between £0.5m and £5.0m. That's for actual work producing something, selling something, helping people etc, earned income as fair recompense for their time and skills. How much more than that could be justified as fair for someone who works really hard, developing nearly unique skills, putting in far longer hours etc (as, for example, would be the case for any elite sportsperson)? A factor of 10? 100? Anyone going to claim that all that extra work and those developed skills are worth 1000x the skills and work of a teacher, nurse etc? I'm going to take that 100x as an upper limit, accepting there's plenty of wriggle room there, which would put an upper lifetime income that's a fair recompense for hard work and skills, ie: genuinely earned money, at somewhere around £500m. Anything beyond that would be well into unearned income in my estimation. So, on that score $10m ish per year isn't unreasonable, if in a couple of years that rises to $100m ish per year then that's getting beyond anything *earned*. On the otherhand, <$100k per year for someone equally skilled and hard working is well below what might be expected especially if there's little chance that they'll ever earn the $1m+ annual salary.

    So, IMO, I wouldn't necessarily count the $11m per annum as outrageous, though there are plenty of sportspeople who do have outrageous incomes. The pay discrepancy for two people who have very comparable skills and work comparable hours, based apparently entirely on gender, is totally outrageous.
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    One of the problems is that 'Elite sport' is a world wide industry. If we don't pay the mega bucks in the UK they will simply move abroad and get it there.
  • It is indeed sexist, but Caitlyn Clark’s salary is just a symptom of the bigger problem. Until the WNBA and WNBA teams are bringing in revenues somewhere near the revenues of the NBA and NBA teams, the ability to pay women higher salaries, much less salaries comparable to those of male basketball players, is non-existent.

    On a different topic, it really is frustrating when thread titles give absolutely no clue as to what the thread is about.


  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    edited April 2024
    Dancers suffer from the same circumstances. They are not paid as highly. Opera singers may last a bit longer but it is still a short window. Sorry top sports people get paid high rates of pay.
  • So, IMO, I wouldn't necessarily count the $11m per annum as outrageous, though there are plenty of sportspeople who do have outrageous incomes. The pay discrepancy for two people who have very comparable skills and work comparable hours, based apparently entirely on gender, is totally outrageous.

    Sportspeople are entertainers, and their output is entertainment. To that end, their "worth" is determined by the number of people that want to watch them.

    The likes of Rihanna and Taylor Swift are talented singers and performers. Each is now worth more than a billion dollars, based on their ability to entertain people. Are they more talented than someone like, for example, Bryn Terfel? I'd say not. But Mr. Terfel has amassed perhaps as much as 1% of the worth of Rihanna or Taylor Swift. It's not because he's worse - it's because fewer people enjoy the sort of singing he does.

  • My stepsister's first husband (I can't yet figure out how to graph that on a genealogical chart) was a well-known professional hockey player. After a Xmas dinner one year, we were sharing a very expensive single malt (a generous host) and he was discussing professional sports life, noting that on his first year, he was paid three times his father's salary. His father was a dedicated high school teacher who had helped many young men find direction in life.

    He said that he felt really guilty about this, knowing how hard his father had worked but his father told him not to worry about it-- he was paid as an entertainer and everyone knew that their pay was rational only in terms of it being a slice of an unpredictable (he phrased it less delicately) market economy. All he had to do was invest for the future as it was unpredictable-- an injury could bring his income down very quickly, and to help others as best he could. Which, I am glad to say, he did on both accounts.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    edited April 2024
    I often jib at the use of the word *earned* when I hear of these incredible sums of money. *Paid* is more accurate IMHO.

    Men's professional basketball is a multi-billion dollar industry. (I believe the NBA's revenues for the 2022-2023 season were $10.58 billion.) Believing that the players are not key to this is usually a way to imply that the team's owners are the ones who have "earned" all this money.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    There are two questions that arise from that.

    1. Where is $10b coming from, what exactly are they paying for? That's not all from fans paying to see their team, probably not even a large chunk of it - the bulk will be advertising, TV rights etc.

    2. Where is it spent? There's far more people involved in basketball than the players and owners. Do the physios, coaches and others directly supporting players get a fair wage for their work? What about the others doing essential work to support the industry - the staff at the bars serving fans, the cleaners who tidy up after a game, stewards who direct people to their seats etc? With that money coming in from sponsors and TV rights, could the ticket price at the gates be cut to let more fans experience a live game?
  • It's very much the same sort of calculus as the top pop stars. Mass media means that a small number of performances can reach a very large number of people. Plus merchandising rights, because many people want a copy of their favorite player's shirt, or Rihanna's makeup or whatever.

    You might think it's "unfair" that some entertainers have an audience of hundreds of millions or perhaps billions of people, whereas others who are very nearly as good have an audience of hundreds of people. But anything that has a market of that size makes a lot of money - whether it's singers or sports players or cellphones.

  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host

    You might think it's "unfair" that some entertainers have an audience of hundreds of millions or perhaps billions of people, whereas others who are very nearly as good have an audience of hundreds of people. But anything that has a market of that size makes a lot of money - whether it's singers or sports players or cellphones.

    I think the issue is that, unlike with phones, the marginal cost of adding extra paying viewers is a minimal part of the expenditure, so the "top" entertainers can expand their reach with little or no risk and generate huge revenue doing so.

    Sport, however, relies on a whole pyramid of grassroots play to feed into the top level. Football academies in the UK have got a lot better at making sure those who don't make it to the top are left with something to fall back on, but still there is a lot of "wastage" and resultant broken dreams in the system. I wonder whether there ought to be wage distribution - you could take 10% of wages in the Premier League and likely double wages in every other English national league (at the low end it's barely minimum wage) - and it would make professional football less of a make or break proposition.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    Or, in relation to music I heard somewhere that in France a slice of the profits from filling a big stadium to hear a top name artist perform is taken to support small clubs and music venues, where lesser known musicians earn a much more meagre living and younger musicians learn the craft of performing in public.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    Crœsos wrote: »
    I often jib at the use of the word *earned* when I hear of these incredible sums of money. *Paid* is more accurate IMHO.

    Men's professional basketball is a multi-billion dollar industry. (I believe the NBA's revenues for the 2022-2023 season were $10.58 billion.) Believing that the players are not key to this is usually a way to imply that the team's owners are the ones who have "earned" all this money.
    Really? Because Robert Nozick in his influential exposition of libertarianism Anarchy, State, and Utopia, uses the argument, there is no injustice in star athletes making ridiculous amounts of money, therefore there is no inherent injustice in anyone making ridiculous amounts of money.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    It is my understanding the real disparity is in the question of revenue disparity. Granted the NBA has more revenue than the WNBA through Television contracts and arena sales. The problem is NBA players share 50% of its revenue through collective bargaining. But WNBA players receive only 10% of its revenue.

    Up until now the WNBA has not had a contract with a major TV network. Hopefully, with the new caliber of women athletes moving from collegiate to professional basketball, the Major TV networks will take another look at the female game. Maybe that will help increase the revenue sharing in the WNBA.
  • The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
    edited April 2024
    Here's some information from here that might interest you:

    2023 WNBA Minumum Salary and Supermax
    Per the league’s collective bargaining agreement, WNBA players with less than three years of experience cannot earn less than $62,285 in 2023, representing the league minimum. For players with three or more years of experience, that number jumps to $74,305.

    As for max contracts, salary structure for 2023 exists in two tiers:

    A “supermax” of $234,936 for veterans that meet special criteria. Three players are earning this salary in 2023: Jewell Loyd (Seattle), Arike Ogunbowale (Dallas), and Diana Taurasi (Phoenix)

    A regular max of $202,154 for everyone else:
    Three players are earning this salary in 2023: Napheesa Collier (Minnesota), Erica Wheeler (Indiana), and A’ja Wilson (Las Vegas)

    In every year of the current CBA, both the minimum and maximum increase to account for inflation.For comparison’s sake, in 2019, the year before the current CBA went into effect, the league minimum was just $41,965 and the max was $117,500.
  • Sport, however, relies on a whole pyramid of grassroots play to feed into the top level. Football academies in the UK have got a lot better at making sure those who don't make it to the top are left with something to fall back on, but still there is a lot of "wastage" and resultant broken dreams in the system. I wonder whether there ought to be wage distribution - you could take 10% of wages in the Premier League and likely double wages in every other English national league (at the low end it's barely minimum wage) - and it would make professional football less of a make or break proposition.

    Is this really so different from music? For every international megastar, there are a bunch of hard-working bands that make very much less money, and as Simon Cowell demonstrates every year, an endless supply of young people of varying ability who would like to be the next megastar. The structure seems pretty similar to me.
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    Sport, however, relies on a whole pyramid of grassroots play to feed into the top level. Football academies in the UK have got a lot better at making sure those who don't make it to the top are left with something to fall back on, but still there is a lot of "wastage" and resultant broken dreams in the system. I wonder whether there ought to be wage distribution - you could take 10% of wages in the Premier League and likely double wages in every other English national league (at the low end it's barely minimum wage) - and it would make professional football less of a make or break proposition.

    Is this really so different from music? For every international megastar, there are a bunch of hard-working bands that make very much less money, and as Simon Cowell demonstrates every year, an endless supply of young people of varying ability who would like to be the next megastar. The structure seems pretty similar to me.

    I would say it's a bit different organisationally, in that artists in popular music are rarely employees in the way sports people are, and the industry is far more anarchic in structure - your money comes directly from selling your music and associated merchandise, while in sport it's a salary that is heavily dependent on branding, both of the club and the league.
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    Talent is not necessarily a marker in pop music. Practically all the people who in a musical can sing better than the likes of Robbie Williams and have to have more presence.
    Ability seems to be more important in sport but popularity of said sport counts. A top class pro badminton player just cannot earn the sam money as a Premier League footballer.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Hugal wrote: »
    Talent is not necessarily a marker in pop music. Practically all the people who in a musical can sing better than the likes of Robbie Williams and have to have more presence.
    Ability seems to be more important in sport but popularity of said sport counts. A top class pro badminton player just cannot earn the sam money as a Premier League footballer.

    Define singing "well" and "badly". It's very subjective.
  • The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Hugal wrote: »
    Talent is not necessarily a marker in pop music. Practically all the people who in a musical can sing better than the likes of Robbie Williams and have to have more presence.
    Ability seems to be more important in sport but popularity of said sport counts. A top class pro badminton player just cannot earn the sam money as a Premier League footballer.

    Define singing "well" and "badly". It's very subjective.

    It is, but I'd say it's also genre dependent. Bel canto singing is a specific technique that's able to be understood on a detailed technical level, and agreed upon by Classical Singers as the way to sing most opera and a lot of Art Song. That kind of fine motor skills along with longstanding historical approaches and norms reduces the amount of pure subjectivity quite a bit, IMO.

    Pop Music, however -- that's a whole other kettle of fish.
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    At the very least singing "well" means you can hit the note the vast majority of the time (without autotuning or pitch correction) with sufficient diction to be understood and a vocal tone that's under your control and if it varies, it's on purpose.
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    Timing too. Except for effect your timing should be reliable.
  • I would say it's a bit different organisationally, in that artists in popular music are rarely employees in the way sports people are, and the industry is far more anarchic in structure - your money comes directly from selling your music and associated merchandise, while in sport it's a salary that is heavily dependent on branding, both of the club and the league.

    AIUI, many of the top sports players earn more money from image rights, endorsements and so on than they do from their employer.
  • wages in every other English national league (at the low end it's barely minimum wage)

    That’s very much not true.

    The minimum wage in the UK is calculated per hour, which makes comparing it to salaried footballers tricky, but for an average of 35 hours a week it works out to £20,820 a year. I can’t do links properly on my phone, so here it is: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/national-minimum-wage/

    The average weekly wage for a professional footballer in the National League (step 5 of the English football system, outside of the Football League, and the last level before it becomes regionalised) is about £1,000 to £1,500 per week. That’s between £52,000 and £75,000 a year. Here’s the link: https://www.888sport.com/blog/how-much-do-national-league-players-get-paid?ampx

    Seriously, even at the lowest levels of the professional game footballers on average get paid very, very well.
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    Wages do certainly seem to have improved since I was last reading about it, thank you for the more recent information. My previous knowledge was in relation to players at clubs going professional taking a cut in pay to leave their day jobs and play full time.

    I will note, though, that it is an average, skewed by the bigger beasts like Oldham.
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