Why Are Professional Athletes Overpaid
Jeremy Reuben Tang Choon Yang
U1480059A
SS1003 Assignment 1
Topic: Are professional athletes overpaid?
Introduction
There has been an incessant debate about whether professional athletes genuinely deserve the extravagant salaries that are transacted to their bank accounts throughout the lifespan of their contracts. Professional athletes are physically gifted human beings who excel at a certain sport and receive an income through their hard work and determination. These individuals are the cream of the crop in terms of fitness and their respective talents when it comes to performing in the sporting arena. These same athletes have to constantly maintain their fitness during peak and off-peak durations of the season, have diets planned under …show more content…
This is a separate income from their contracts with their agents or teams. Big brands such as Nike, Adidas and Gatorade spend as much as US$1.6 billion on endorsements every year because athletes can help to build brand awareness, validate a product’s features and boost the brand equity. Building brand equity is the main reason for endorsements, which is ‘the value a company realizes from a product with a recognizable name’. LeBron James earned a hefty 15 million dollars by donning Nike products in 2013 and raised US$100 million dollars in profit. Big brands are more often than not, willing to pay athletes to create and maintain that brand equity. Paying the athletes a huge sum of money is an avenue for which the brand can generate greater returns and revenue in the long run. Rory Mcllroy has a ten year contract with Nike worth 250 million dollars as he has topped the golf charts and emerged as the top golfer for the past few seasons (Big brands spend so much on athlete endorsements. (n.d.). Retrieved October 6, 2014). Athletes who endorse the product do not only get paid in huge sums, they are also sponsored that brand’s products such as shoes, apparels, sporting gear etc. It is unthinkable of what one can do with so much money and this is a fairly convincing factor that athletes earn too much
U1480059A
SS1003 Assignment 1
Topic: Are professional athletes overpaid?
Introduction
There has been an incessant debate about whether professional athletes genuinely deserve the extravagant salaries that are transacted to their bank accounts throughout the lifespan of their contracts. Professional athletes are physically gifted human beings who excel at a certain sport and receive an income through their hard work and determination. These individuals are the cream of the crop in terms of fitness and their respective talents when it comes to performing in the sporting arena. These same athletes have to constantly maintain their fitness during peak and off-peak durations of the season, have diets planned under …show more content…
This is a separate income from their contracts with their agents or teams. Big brands such as Nike, Adidas and Gatorade spend as much as US$1.6 billion on endorsements every year because athletes can help to build brand awareness, validate a product’s features and boost the brand equity. Building brand equity is the main reason for endorsements, which is ‘the value a company realizes from a product with a recognizable name’. LeBron James earned a hefty 15 million dollars by donning Nike products in 2013 and raised US$100 million dollars in profit. Big brands are more often than not, willing to pay athletes to create and maintain that brand equity. Paying the athletes a huge sum of money is an avenue for which the brand can generate greater returns and revenue in the long run. Rory Mcllroy has a ten year contract with Nike worth 250 million dollars as he has topped the golf charts and emerged as the top golfer for the past few seasons (Big brands spend so much on athlete endorsements. (n.d.). Retrieved October 6, 2014). Athletes who endorse the product do not only get paid in huge sums, they are also sponsored that brand’s products such as shoes, apparels, sporting gear etc. It is unthinkable of what one can do with so much money and this is a fairly convincing factor that athletes earn too much