Professional sports are bigger than ever before, and so are the athlete’s salaries. On average, a NBA player earns 5.15 million dollars a year, a MLB player 3.2 million and a NFL player 1.9 million. The question is: Should professional athletes get paid this much?

Supply and Demand

If there is one thing that has stuck with me from economy class it’s that supply and demand affects price. High caliber sports athletes are in very short supply. There is only one Derek Jeter and Lebron James. Talents like these are hard to come by and even harder for a team to obtain.

And while many teams wish they can all have a Jeter on their team, it’s just not all that likely. At this point it becomes the classic who-can-outbid-who scenario and in most cases, the superstar will go to the team with the highest salary offered to them.

Fans Pay the Players

The payroll a team has doesn’t come out of thin air. In fact, a team’s success financially is largely based on how many fans the team has. Teams with large fanbases like the LA Dodgers or Seattle Seahawks sell a lot of tickets while teams like the Cleveland Indians, who was in the bottom 5 in attendance for the 2014 season, do not sell as many tickets.

According to CBS Sports, the sport with the highest average ticket price is the NFL with $84.43; it remains the one of the top live spectator sports in the world.  This is all because fans are willing to spend the money to see their teams play live.

So technically, the fans are one of the main reasons teams can spend so much money on these players. Without them, these 200 million dollar contracts wouldn’t be possible.

It’s just a Game

In 2013, professional soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo earned a whopping 49 million dollars. How can a person who plays a game for a living earn a ridiculous amount more than the average US soldier or registered nurse? People who save lives are earning less than those who throw a ball on a grass field. Many believe that’s not fair, and rightly so.

Preference over Judgment

Many people find sports as an escape from the real world and because of that they will continue to pay whatever they can to experience it. Just like how teams will continue to pay whatever they can to get the top athletes so they can succeed. It is a business after all.

You can’t deny the endless entertainment sports can bring into a household or the pure happiness a child has when their favorite player does something great.  I get it. I am one of those people whose life has been revolved around sports from the day I could walk.

But if you could choose where the 49 million dollar salary went, wouldn’t you want it to go to someone who saves lives on a daily basis, or risks their lives to protect others instead of someone who plays a game for a living?