Peyton Manning throws the football and scores a touchdown, Mia Hamm takes the football on the sideline and scores a beautiful curving field goal. Michael Jordan Scores Three Points – But Are These Athlete “Jobs” Worth the Millions of Dollars They Get? There are many reasons why it would make sense for an athlete to make a lot of money, for example: "it takes an insane amount of dedication, sacrifice, aversion to pain, tenacity and determination to become the king of sport. hill. If you can do this, then you deserve every penny” (Source A). These commendable skills make them the cream of the crop, but is it enough to earn them a salary that could reach hundreds of millions? No. Athletes are paid insane amounts of money for entertainment purposes; they receive money from a society that reveres the good fight or rivalry game. In fact, this money could be better used in many other contexts. The most valid and important reason why athletes are overpaid has to do with their performance. Yes, they are professionals, but in the grand scheme of things, what are they actually accomplishing? These people play a game for entertainment purposes. Mark Simmons states that "...Ozzie Smith earned $2.34 million from the St. Louis Cardinals for driving his body into the dirt and catching all those grounders" (Source A). Similarly, someone claims that athletes make more than enough money to “throw a ball or swing a bat” (Source E). The capital spent on athletics is staggering; some athletes earn hundreds of millions of dollars over consecutive years playing with a ball or running. And it seems so crazy to make so much money with a task that requires no formal education. ...... middle of paper ......e with $23,904 per year (Source C), and yet an athlete who doesn't affect your personal life at all, who is just a vision on your television screen, earns millions of dollars a year. In short, when you turn on your television and see the Sports Center discussing athlete salaries, there will undoubtedly be critics and supporters. There will always be some. In reality, you know these athletes don't fully deserve the money they get. An athlete's performance on a television screen alone is not enough to earn millions of dollars. So why do we willingly give these people such a huge amount of money? Why don't we keep in mind the variety of other things our money could usefully be used for? The check these athletes get is in no way proportional to their valiant effort in a game or their help in advancing a sports team..