The NBA is apparently in need of a $175 million dollar loan. Essentially a bailout from Bank of America and JP Morgan, which in turn were bailed out by US Taxpayer funds.
http://www.breitbart.com/
The National Basketball Association will borrow 175 million dollars to serve as aid to teams that might struggle in the weak global economy, Sports Business Journal reported Thursday…Half of the league’s 30 teams agreed there was a need to go through with the borrowing, according to the report…
That’s fantastic. Apparently even major league sports are really hurting in this tough economic times.
Gosh! If only there were a way to cut back some of the spending from this crucial organization. Maybe like, oh I don’t know, work over some of their salaries?
The NBA Spends over 2.1 BILLION Dollars a year a salaries alone!
The League Minimum Salary for the Calendar year 2008 was $412,718 per year. And few players are making the NBA’s minimum wage.
The top 30 highest paid players in the NBA make over 14 million dollars a year. Kevin Garnett from Boston ringing in at number 1 with a $24,750,000 salary. At the bottom of the top 30 is Lebron James with a yearly salary of $14,410,581.
The New York Knicks spend almost $100 Million dollars a year on salaries alone. And that’s just one of 30 teams!
You know, sports has it’s place in the world. But this is disgusting.
SalariesSource: HoopsHype
I think you make some cool stuff- I use makemetheking.com with some frequency -and yours is certainly not the most egregious variant of this theme, but i’ve got a few minutes and yours is the last post i’ve seen on the subject, so here goes.
The incredible salary earned by professional athletes is entirely justified as long as you accept the premise of our market economy itself. They earn that money by creating revenue for the owners of the teams at the expense of their bodies and time. They are paid such exorbitant amounts because their playing creates vastly larger sums for the organization, which is parlayed into large salaries for managers, marketers, agents, etc. While it may be that the NBA is managing its finances poorly, that is not self-evident from its asking for a loan from a commercial lender. This type of loan is not a bailout from the government, it is simply the business of banks.
The other thing to keep in mind about the seemingly outrageous salaries of pro-athletes is that in the NBA, the average career is 5 years. The strain on the body of a basketball player is a lot higher than that of the owner who is earning multi-millions from the labor of his players, and he is able to do that for many more years.
Just keep in mind that players are paid an absurd fee because networks pay an absurd fee to televise games, the leagues make absurd fees on merchandising, ticket sales, etc. The only thing that is disgusting is our collective willingness to watch people perform arbitrary actions with balls. But then, people have always been fascinated by watching tasks performed extremely well, so perhaps that is not so disgusting either.