Your best estimate, has large, lucrative, salaries helped, hurt, or had little effect on professional sports?

The players in most sports are under paid. The contracts seem inflated for someone who essentially plays a game for a living. But compared to the money the sports generate ,the players,who are the reason we watch, get a small fraction of what the owners get.

The NFL is the greatest example. The league makes like $9 billion a year. The highest paid players get like $100 million spread over 6 years. They’re the ones taking the hiys, hitting the weight room, studying film etc. What they get is a drop in the bucket.

Athlete salaries are perfect example of the free market at work. The athlete has a unique product to sell (his/her talents) and the owners are willing buyers, happy to pay for the product because they figure they will benefit from it.

I don’t think the question is proper. It isn’t whether the athletic market is good for sports or not. People (the population of the US and other countries) are generally stupid and will watch whatever is put in front of them. And they’ll pay for it, no matter what it costs.

Any free market capitalist should be thrilled at high athletic salaries – it is a meritocracy at its best (the most talented players can command the highest salaries), and the entire scheme is made up of willing sellers and willing buyers.

Capitalism at work!

I don’t know that they’ve specifically hurt or helped, but I think the free agent system is ideal for professional sports.

I want to say high salaries have hurt sports, but I can’t.

Professional sports is an entertainment industry, like professional acting and, increasingly, in the US, professional politics. The money is reward to some, incentive for others.

@elbanditoroso People (the population of the US and other countries) are generally stupid and will watch whatever is put in front of them. And they’ll pay for it, no matter what it costs.
Would that make those who would complain about the cost of taking their family of four to a ballgame a small vocal minority chewing sour grapes because they can’t afford to go watch the ”show” with the ease another can?

Seeing the owners do not have that high salary money in their bank accounts, to pay the athletes what they command because they are the starts of ’the show”, would not tickets have to be higher than they could be? Not that people are truly boycotting going to the ball park or stadium as you said, but that has no effect on the sport as an industry, even in the hearts and minds of the fans?