It's a World Cup year!

It anoys me that sports stars - and especially footballers - get criticised so much for what they earn, when you hardly ever hear any criticism of film stars and pop stars who earn just as much.I think it's a class thing - nobody likes to see those uncouth, uneducated working class lads making loads of money, they should know their place, but it's alright for arty-farty middle class actors to do so.

Hi, JUC. I don't really criticize either one personally, but I rather dislike art people.----- It does cause a lot of young kids to think education isn't important. People (like me) who think education is the most important thing for the future should rightly worry about that. Personally, I don't care (and, again, I would prefer athletes to artists anyday), but I do understand why some people would make that distinction.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Let's throw it in the other direction. If the common man didn't, go to the game, or buy CDs, DVds etc, or go to movies and watch TV, none of these "icons" would be making all this excess money.
One thing professional athletes, music stars and actors have in common is charisma. They can sell themselves well.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

I agree with you, they shouldn't earn as much either.

Here in the US both get critizied, athletes and actors. But what the public fails to realize, especially with acting, movies and Hollywood, is that it's a handful of people who make "money" in Hollywood. Just as, it's a handful of athletes who make serious money.For actors, the majority (around 95%) are hard working people who don't live that glamorous life. Even people you would consider having "fame", like say Joe Rogan, aren't filthy rich people. And Joe is on the high end, but works his ass off.But, like with athletes and actors, we should consider the fact that there are other people profiting in a huge way from these guys. Like Chris Rock said, "Shaq is rich, the guy who signs his check is wealthy." So the money to pay an athlete like A-Rod or Shaq isn't being taken away from something else that is suffering, it is being pay to them by filthy rich owners who OWE these players a cut of the huge earnings. Because, if it wasn't for them, the owners wouldn't have shit.I agree that if we compare, say what a doctor does and an athlete, it's obvious who desrves more based on the work they do. But that's not the point we should be looking at. What we should recognize is that there is a bigger fish feeding off the sweat of these athletes that, if they didn't pay the athletes that kind of money, they would take all the profit for themselves. That would be worse.Say Tom Cruise get 20 million for a movie. Now, how much did Miramax make from the movie? That's the question. And is the percentage they gave Tom fair?Some actors only get a percentage, some get a based pay and a percentage. Depending on their experience and career the percentage goes up.Say you stand to make 10% off the film after the studio's been paid, etc. If for example Miramax made 300 million on the film, and you were one of the reasons the film did well, why should Miramax keep all of it? You're 10% is earned and deserved because someone else is profiting much much more from you.Just my opinion...- Oni

And let the studios keep all the earnings? Or, let the owners of the sports teams keep all the money?Why should actors or athletes not make a fair percentage off the money being made by CEO's of major companies, networks, studios, etc.?If they didn't make that much, some suit would be making a lot more. Would that be fair?- Oni

Hi, Onifre. I think the idealistic scenario being presented involves more than just limits on entertainers' salaries: I think it's more a commentary on the priorities of society than it is a call for some sort of change to the legal or economic system.Edited by Bluejay, : Every once and awhile, my bad English comes back, and I have to subdue it again.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi Bluejay, Well I didn't get that from the posts I read. It just seemed like people here didn't think actors/athletes deserved to be paid that much.But let me ask, what do you mean by the "priorities of society"...? Do you think society prioritizes athletics and entertainment more than education? Cause if that's what you mean then I agree 100%.But here's the thing, what is the end purpose of having an education? If it's to learn, gain knowledge, become a smarter person, then education in that sense doesn't require school. It just requires investing time to learn. If the purpose of an education is to get a good job, that pays well, helps you buy a home, a car, go on vacation and basically enjoy certain luxuries in life - if that's the end purpose - then what's the difference in achieving that goal through other means?That's why I'm curious as to what you mean by "priorities of socirty;" what do you feel is priority and for what end purpose?- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

Hi, Onifre. It wasn't my argument: I just thought I was helping prevent a misunderstanding.I don't personally have a problem with athletes and rockstars getting lots of money for what they do: I like buying music and watching sports on TV, and so do a lot of other people. Economically, it makes perfect sense for them to make a lot of money.I do kind of wish there was a way for education and science to be as economically successful as sports and entertainment, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect that and I don't know how to make it happen.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

That's not really what I meant. I'm not really bothered by how much any of them earn. It annoys me the ways athletes, and footballers (soccer players) in particular, are patronised by the public and the media. They are required to be dumb, simple, morally perfect individuals, whereas for some reason that doesn't apply to artistic entertainers. I just find that irritating.It doesn't bother me that some footballers or film stars earn millions, and their employers may earn hundreds of millions, and yet a doctor doesn't get paid as much. What do most doctors earn in the West - 100K+ a year? Probably a lot more in USA. What have they got to worry about? They probably earn a lot more and have a lot more job security than the majority of professional athletes and actors. How many sports cars can you drive? How many fat lunches can you eat?

I can't speak for anybody else, but when I talk about footballers being paid so much it isn't because of a disapproval of society's priorities. The problem is that the intense competition for the signatures of world-class players make it very difficult for lower-ranked clubs to move up to the top. Football is less interesting the more it is dominated by the same teams over and over again, but most clubs simply cannot offer the wages that the super-wealthy like Chelsea or Real Madrid can.I don't know if I'm really in favour of wage caps, as it seems almost impossible to police 'side benefits' granted to players, and there is still competition at the top - this year there are no English teams in the semis of the Champions League for the first time in 7 years. But it does seem unfair the way some clubs are able to use their vast resources to simply buy players left and right to deny them to rivals, the way Real operates.

Hi, Caffeine. The USA doesn't even have a promotion/relegation system, so I usually don't think about this aspect of the game. Lower-ranked teams are only used for promoting players to top-tier teams.----- I feel the same way about most sports. Association football especially, I think. In the English Premier league, for example, it seems like there are only ever about 5 teams that have a shot at the top (and they're the same ones every year), and maybe 8 that are always playing to avoid relegation. The other half are generally able to tactfully avoid all the drama that makes the sport interesting.American sports are generally better at that, but the MLB is very unbalanced, as is the NBA. The NFL has a few perpetual cellar dwellers, but the championships have been spread out pretty well among all the teams across its history (there are only 4 out of 30 teams in the league that haven't played in the Super Bowl).

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

The promotion and relegation is what makes football so special and gripping, to me. I love the huge, pyramidal structure of it all. My local team back in England aren't very good, and recently fell out of the league ('the league' means the top four divisions of English football), leaving them only one flight above regional football. But even if the worst happens, and they're relegated to the Blue Square North*, I know that they're still playing in the same vast system as the superstars on the TV. The only thing that would be standing in their way of taking on Bayern Munich or Lyon in the Champions League would be 6 consecutive league victories - spectacularly unlikely, but theoretically possible nonetheless. And competitions like the FA Cup mean that tiny little local teams do get the odd chance to go and play against millionaires in top stadiums. Whilst annoying, the Premier League isn't the worst in the world. It's dominated by four teams (and this year one of those is currently sitting precariously in 6th place), while there are a depressing number of national leagues dominated by just two. Since the start of the Scottish Premiership in 1998, Rangers and Celtic have finished either first or second every year except 2006, when Hearts came second.*as another aside, I hate the way sponsorship has changed the names of all the competitions, of grounds, and even sometimes of teams.

I agree with a lot of what you say but, while it's true that certain teams are generally more successful than others, I think it is something of an illusion that they always dominate. Things do change and no one team always dominates. For example, looking at the English premier league and old first division, Manchester Utd (the largest football club in the world) had to wait 26 years from winning the league in 1967 to winning again in 1993. But Liverpool, who dominated the league in the 70s and 80s, winning 11 times in that period, have not won in the last 20 years! Who's to say Man Utd won't go through another long lean spell in the near future?One of the big criticisms in recent years has been, as you say, 4 teams dominating the league, and nobody else able to get anywhere near them. But during the 90s the criticism was that it was just 2 teams, Man Utd and Arsenal, that dominated. 4 was a big improvement on that. This season only 3 teams have been within shot of the title, but you have 4 or 5 teams fighting for 4th place, and giving the top 3 teams a hard time when they play them. I think it's quite exciting at the moment. It would only take a marginal improvement to make any of them serious challengers for the top.I recall in the early 90s when AC Milan had a very strong team and dominated the Italian league and European competitions a lot of people said they were so strong nobody would ever get near them. They said they had enough good players to field separate teams in the domestic and European leagues and dominate them. Although they obviously remain a strong team, that level of dominance did not last.

Hi, Caffeine. I like the system too: it makes the game more interesting, with new teams entering the league all the time. It also makes the teams have to perform to at least some level in order to stay, so you improve the chances that the league or division will have the best teams possible. For that reason alone, I wish USA sports would try the system out (but, since the leagues here are actually run by the franchise owners, this is obviously less likely to happen).I think I like the way Elitserien (Swedish Hockey) does it better though: there's a qualifying tournament instead of automatic promotion/relegation. It makes sure you don't get a crap team in by a fluke.----- That's true. But even though some leagues are dominated by two or three teams (Eredivisie), the diversity of international competitions and tournaments in European football still keeps it interesting.By the way, can you (or anyone) explain to me a little how the international competitions work? I know UEFA Champions League is the highest European competition, and UEFA Europa League is next, but how do they determine which teams go to which UEFA competition?

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.