Rising tides for athlete's earnings

August 02, 2019 | Mark Porretta


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There's no perfect formula for how much money people make. This has never been more evident than in professional sports. Athletes’ salaries illustrate one of the basic economic theories; you get paid as much as someone is willing to pay you. Last week, Forbes came out with their annual Top 100 highest-paid athletes, combining their earnings from prize money, salaries, and endorsements between June 2018 and June 2019. Standing on top of the list is Lionel Messi with total earnings of $127M, while the 100th highest paid athlete, cricket star Virat Kohli, earned $25M over the same time frame. The ongoing argument over whether athletes are overpaid will never end and will never be resolved. But that's not my intention with this article. This article resonated with me less as a sports fan and more as a business owner. It amazes me that year after year professional sports leagues' salary caps rise (as well as individual salaries) while the leagues continue to post record profits. It's no coincidence that the rise in earnings for athletes corresponds to the increase in revenue generated from TV contracts. But where does it go from here? At the moment, people are consuming sports content at high levels but cable subscriptions are declining. If the rise in salaries is directly linked to highly paid TV contracts, where will future revenues come from to support rising salaries? Unfortunately, my crystal ball works about as well as the next person. So in the mean time we can just complain about the fact that we can't hit a baseball 400 feet, a golf ball 300 yards, or that most of us are not 6"10. Whether it’s where athletes salaries go from here, the 150% increase in earnings for the tenth-highest-paid player from 15 years ago, or whether you think athletes are overpaid, let me know what you think?

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