The Invincible Business

Professional sports seem to be the only business entity that cannot be truly harmed by the dwindling economy. Perhaps certain small aspects of these businesses have been altered, but the overall existence of the various leagues has never been truly threatened. People all across the nation lose jobs and financial stability each day creating for great uncertainty. This does not happen in professional sports as we do not worry that the NBA and NFL or MLB will be cancelled. With pure certainty I can say that the Spurs and Clippers will play on Monday March 3rd 2009 and that the playoffs will take place this summer. No matter what happens in our economy new music will be produced, television shows will air, radios will broadcast, new video games created, movies starring Nicholas Cage will continue to be made, (at an alarming rate) and the major professional sports in the United States won't miss a beat. Perhaps there is slight comfort within the realization that our "escapes" will always be available to us, no matter how grim a financial world we live in. I can turn on the television at any time of any day, tune in to the appropriate channel and watch a game or find evidence of one played or one to be played. There is a set of certainties in life that include life, death, uncertainties, and what we'll call professional entertainment. Within the boundless amount of uncertainties life has to offer there is one that holds great prevalence in current times.

This aforementioned uncertainty is of course the failing economy that has brought horrifying new depth to the pallet of uncertainties. For instance, the NBA is in no danger of  a collapse and in fact will just about break even by the end of this fiscal period. With renowned popularity across the world because of so many international players and a growing interest within the United States, professional basketball is an untouchable business. Outside the golden palace of professional sports there is rampant economic downturn aggressively dismantling the auto industry, stock market, social services, retail workforce, and the housing market along with other longstanding American organizations/businesses. There will always be sports, but there will not always be jobs and financial security. I know there will be 16 teams in this year's playoffs that will be nationally televised, but no one knows how many jobs will be lost or how much money washed away.

To say the poor economy does not effect the NBA or NFL in any way would be dimwitted. Each of these leagues are certainly not positively effected under the country's present financial standing. They are effected in an adverse manner, but they are in no way in any danger of ceasing to exist; and the star players of these leagues are in no danger of not making millions upon millions of dollars annually. The NFL may have faced the brunt of the damaged economy more so (than the NBA) by having to fire 150 league employees. The most visible negative outcome of the current fiscal crisis upon these powerhouse sports entities is the changes taking shape on the salary cap. The salary cap is a set limit on how much a team is allocated to spend on the total salary of it's entire roster. The NFL's salary cap was $85 million in 2005 and has exponentially risen and will be $123 million this upcoming season. The problem lies within the fact that team owners will be spending less and they will not be able to even use all of their cap space. As for the NBA the salary cap will be shrinking for next year and teams will not be able to sign high level free agents or  absorb any large contracts. A separate contributor to a more frugal approach is the year 2010. The elite free agent class of 2010 including: Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire, and others has general managers across the league salivating. Many teams are trying to clear as much cap space as humanly possible to make way for a superstar for next season. The economy and so many teams gearing up for 2010's free agent class has the NBA in a strange position. Salary cap issues and firings of player personnel are unfortunate results of our country's economic situation for professional sports. However, these issues are nothing more than an inconvenience to the overall sports business whose monetary well being is intact. Any problems encountered by  the NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB or any main American sports league you focus on, will forever pale in comparison to the real world's pressing matters. People losing their jobs, homes, and lives they, in the not too distant past, gladly knew. 

This is a sports blog. I care very much about the NFL and the NBA and sports in general. It bothers me that the Golden State Warriors won't make the playoffs or that Allen Iverson will never win a championship. I want the Boston Celtics to win another championship this year and I am confused why the Los Angeles Clippers are so terrible. I was devastated for two weeks when the Patriots lost their most recent Super Bowl and the perfect season that will never be, but I'll never understand or justify why hundreds of millions of dollars go to these athletes. Professional athletes who earn more money in a single year than most people would ever be able to spend. I can understand and respect buying a large fancy house and car, maybe even a few of each. I can also understand having your family share this life style with you. Send all of your children to college, own a boat, support those outside your immediate family, and take as many vacations as you like, but what else do you really need? What else are you spending such sums of money on? The absurdity that I won't boycott pro sports because of how wildly overpaid these men are is apparent. I often wish I could "moral up" and boycott this monstrosity, but then where is my escape? That is identical to asking others to stop watching Hollywood movies, listening to pop music, or gamers to cold turkey PlayStation 3. What enrages me most about these outlandish salaries is not spawned from feelings of jealously or envy, but from seeing a wasted opportunity. Our economy struggles and professional sports will continue to thrive somehow, there is something wrong in that equation.

How can the number one enraging aspect of overpaid sports stars be a "wasted opportunity"? The following may seem from a communist strain of thought and is coming from an uneducated source on economics and politics. If you earn over one million dollars per year it should be required that you give 1% of your salary to a charity or to a failing industry who's success would boost the economy. We need to improve the lower class before we concern ourselves with keep the upper class wealthy. An impressive betterment of our country would occur under this plan. Even if only one percent of these movie, music, and sports star's salaries were utilized towards saving the economy or strengthening  a charity, much could be changed. This money could be use to reinvigorate the social services programs that help impoverished people receive job training, health care, and more employment opportunities. With a purpose to help the lower class improve their quality of life and then maintain it through assistance from such programs. Providing health care for all citizens of our society creates a healthier nation, which in turn can be a more productive one. We need health care, jobs, and money to support the lower classes in their improvement processes. In capitalism our society relies upon the upper class drawing a majority of its' wealth from the stock market (which can and has crashed). Keeping the upper class wealthy has caused a plummeting economy and an ever present portion of the population poverty stricken. With a 1% withdrawal from the obscenely lucrative professional entertainment industry's salaries, it would be possible to generate many positive changes in the lower class and the economy. Those who make $20 million dollars per film or $200,000 per three hour game could remain in lavish existence quite easily after sustaining a 1% income deduction. Part of President Obama's new plan gives tax breaks to those buying a new home, a new car, those making their home more energy efficient, or for sending their child to college. These are all good for the economy's regrowth, but are unfortunately actions only being performed by the upper middle and the upper class. If you have money to buy a new home or car in today's situation you probably aren't the one suffering.

Focusing back to collecting 1% of pro athlete's annual salary, let's specifically discuss the NBA. To estimate how much money this could be you first look at the all starting five's on all thirty teams in the league. It's more than fair to say that all NBA starters make at least one million a year and based on that it can be said that 150 players would be giving up 10,000 a year. With the 150 starters alone we would have 1.5 million dollars each year; but in actuality that estimation is quite low because many NBA starters and also bench players earn yearly salaries vastly exceeding one million dollars. NFL players are constantly being fined $10,000 and more for overly elaborate end zone celebrations after a touchdown. Celebrations that the league deem "inappropriate". Fines for illegal or unnecessarily dangerous tackles are important to enforce, however the many other fines for trivial infractions are questionable. What does the league even do with all of that extra fine money? The NBA is equally bad by fining coaches and players $10,000 and more for arguing calls made by the referees. These are meaningless amounts of money for these players to pay, mere pocket change. $10,000 is 1% of 1,000,000 and if you take 1% of a mega movie star's salary (like a Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts) of $20,000,000 each film that is $200,000. Also consider that these actors/actresses might star in more than one movie a year which would increase that 1% amount to $400,000(for two movies).  If you combine the collections (of 1%) from salaries over one million per year, from all of professional entertainment's sources the amount would be staggering. Billions of dollars could be transferred from the invincible business to maximize the efficiency of major charitable organizations or to save our failing retail, social service, auto, housing and countless other markets.

 

As I said before this was an uneducated perspective on the daunting economic situation and perhaps my theories would prove useless. If the situation could be so simply solved it would have been by now. This issue is far more complex than I made it seem and its not as simple as take the money from the wealthy and give it to the poor. Educated on this subject or not I can accurately say that actors, professional athletes and many other members of professional entertainment are sickeningly over paid. Although my theory to assist the economy would not damage the invincible business it will never happen. The arguments against taking 1% of salaries away from people because they are successful would be many and the legal system would never allow for it. Our priorities in this country are backwards as we have a profession where you can earn millions of dollars for playing a game. Our economy is failing us, yet we have an invincible business that can provide no aid.