The Salary Ethics of Professional Athletes My argument is that it is unethical for professional athletes to receive the enormous amount of compensation that they receive. By Unethical I mean that it is an injustice to the hard-working citizens of our country who want to earn a dollar and do so while doing a well-respected job. By compensation I mean the ridiculous amounts of money an athlete earns from playing a particular sport. The criteria or standards of value I will use are as follows: 1. A man who has not graduated from college may not be qualified to earn existing wages. 2. Ridiculous salaries are setting an example to our youth that just because you can hit a baseball or shoot a basketball or shoot a hockey puck or throw a soccer ball you can make millions of dollars without actually earning it. 3. A graduating athlete deserves money based on his or her collegiate experience. I will first discuss the purpose of the degree and then delve into the fact that just because you have a God given talent does not mean you should earn millions more than others, and finally I will conclude that the graduate who makes it in the world of professional sports deserves money in based on college experience. Now let's move on to my first point of being a graduate. Kobe Bryant, one of the NBA's most prolific scorers and highest-paid player, never went to college. Indeed, Bryant, a native of my hometown in Delaware County, bypassed college and made the leap to the NBA. He should be able to receive the amount of money that he receives, and the average college student who graduates and has a degree is not able to get a job that pays that kind of base salary. I think not, in fact I feel like the only kind of people who have any interest in making the kind of money that athletes make are doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, and maybe anyone who actually goes to graduate school. Now these types of professions have the right to make that type of income because they not only graduated, but they went to graduate school, perfected their craft and earned a degree. Kevin Garnett has the richest contract in the history of the NBA, 6 years worth 126 million dollars and has never set foot on one of our great campuses in the United States of America. Please tell me why Garnett should earn this money if he never has... half a paper...... 00 dollars. Would there be the same amount of competition and would the sport be as fun to play for these athletes? Not to mention that by going to sporting events we condone the payment of these athletes. Now I am a HUGE sports fan, as many of you know. I also do sports broadcasting and have my own company that covers Philadelphia sporting events. This means that I go to games with a press credential and do not line the pockets of the owners and therefore the players with my hard earned money. In fact, if you weren't in the sports broadcasting industry, the possibility of attending these games and paying these ridiculous prices that would ultimately lead to these absurd salaries is highly unlikely. In conclusion, today I demonstrated how the amount of money athletes earn is unethical for our society. I have provided good examples of criteria supported by evidence. I've laid out my statement and thesis on the topic and given reasons why I think athlete salaries are ridiculous. Our children should not grow up thinking that all they have to do is drink milk to be like Mike or walk in Kobe's shoes to achieve his success, rather they must earn it.