Who Benefits Economically From Sport

On October 17 2013 we learned about Sports and the Economy- Who Benefits from Sport?

In my opinion everyone benefits from sport but not as much as the athletes.

As stated in our notes athletes are granted:

·         Contracts

·        Salaries

·        Appearance Fees

·         Restrictive labor practices to keep salaries down.

Athletes get so much money from playing professional sports its ridiculous.  43 states in the U.S have implemented the pay for play policy at their universities. The NFL is $9 billion dollar revenue and the NBA is about $4million. It also says in our notes that “Money has become the foundation of sport at all levels.” I definitely agree with this statement. If this wasn’t true the Vikings wouldn’t be building a new $500million. The Affiliated Press who wrote the article “Vikings bump stadium share past S500 million” stated that they will increase their contribution to a new stadium to $500 million to make sure the project has everything they want. Let’s get serious here. We can spend $500 million dollars on a brand new stadium despite the things we need to pay for such as our debt with china our loans. This is outrageous, the athletes, coaches, fans and family benefit from sport but, in reality its mainly the ATHLETES. By us building new stadiums to accommodate the fans this brings in revenue and pays the athletes and coaches a lot more money. Stadium authority chairwoman Michele Kelm-Helgen said the rising costs are a sign of an improving economy. Of course this is true if your rise the cost then sport will grow. As long as the population grows sport will to, just like I mentioned before in another blog. The NFL makes about $1.9m, NBA, $5.15million, NHL $2.4million,and the MLB $3.31million. You would think average salaries in sport would be higher.

 In Coakley’s text (Pg. 378) he writes that the owners of top pro teams in the major men’s sports make money from …..

·          Gate Receipts

·         Media revenue

·         Stadium revenues

·         Licensing Fees

·         Merchandise sales

So not only do athletes benefit from sport but, the coaches share a huge role to. But,what about the fans family and other people involved in sport,why do they barely benefit economically from sport? Think About it!

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