The salaries extended to professional athletes have risen astronomically in the last decade.  Recently the Texas Rangers signed shortstop

Alex Rodriguez to a ten year contract worth up to $252 million dollars.  That is $2 million more than the team was purchased for.  The

precise amounts of the contract are not the focus of this website; rather the ethics behind paying athletes huge salaries will be discussed.

Arguments have existed for some time on whether it is right to pay athletes millions upon millions of dollars.  The following websites

address this topic and shed light on the question of "Is it right to pay athletes massive amounts of money?"
 

Alex Rodriguez (10 years, $252 million)

http://webpages.shepherd.edu/tlong01/salaries.html   This website addresses the status of player salaries in 1998.  The author concludes that we should not grumble about athletes making so much money because we would want the same if we were in their shoes.  He does blame owners and agents for ruining the "essence of the game" with all this money.

 http://www.noarena.org/citations.htm#seven   This website argues that astronomical salaries of pro athletes provide unrealistic career goals and expectations for too many school age athletes.

 http://www.lewrockwell.com/murphy/murphy22.html   The author of this website states there is something terribly wrong with our value system when Arod gets paid $173,793 for one baseball game when a nursing assistant would need 10 years to earn the same.

 http://www.askmen.com/sports/business/23c_sports_business.html   This article says it is okay that athletes make millions because of the sacrifice they make to play.  So many athletes are lost along the way and never make this kind of money.  If you make it, you deserve every penny.

 http://www.nonline.com/procon/html/conSalary.htm   This author states that athletes are worth every penny they make regardless of the sport they play.  They play for competition and love of the game, not for money.

 http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~jcarte01/problems.html   This site lists and describes various problems stemming from high salaries (i.e. disenchanted fans, college students leaving school prior to graduation etc.).

 http://chicagotribune.com/sports/main/article/0,2669,ART-40129,FF.html   This website contends that high salaries raise a host of questions.  Such as "should younger players who are not ready for the majors be rushed because they don't cost much?"

 http://bvsd.k12.co.us/cent/Newspaper/dec97/p6/stories/borrow-sports.html   This author says sports are games we are supposed to do for fun.  The exorbitant salaries undermine the true spirit of the game.

 http://www.unc.edu/dth/archives/1998/10/102198/rev2.html   This website reveals the problem of agents contacting college athletes too early for NCAA rules.  The agents want a share of the money and signing good players who will command high salaries is a competitive process causing a host of problems.

Jake Plummer                         Drew Henson
(4 years, $29.7 million)            (6 years, $17 million (never played a single game of major league baseball))