In the message below this one, I discussed the model of teamwork, and how much success it has achieved. Today, I thought about the money that these players make. I know, the dollar amounts are ridiculous, but the only reason that they can make that much money is because their franchise makes that much money. The reason the franchise makes that money, is because Americans become bored very easily. I'm not looking to talk about their salaries, I'm going to talk about something else.
In every corporation, every company, every shop, there is an unwritten rule. You are not supposed to share your income, be it salary or wage, with you're co workers. In fact I accidentally showed my hourly wage to the foreman of a job that I did with an electrical contracting company. He said, "You might not want to let that get out." The question in that situation was, "Am I making more than the other workers? Or am I making less?" If I was making more (I don't think I was...$20 an hour for a licensed electrician is not a decent wage) then he wanted me to hide my wage from the other workers. If I was making less, maybe he didn't want me to talk with others and find out how much more they were making than me. The foreman didn't seem like the type to care how much the company lost by paying its employees, but if I was making more than the rest, how the hell did anybody stay with that company?
There is always much inequality between co-workers in the office. For one man to find out that he has been working harder than John Doe, but makes less money would be detrimental to the profits of the company. Would you accept less pay than a co-worker if you knew that you worked harder than him?
Getting back to sports. It is reported by the media every contract that is signed for every player on every team. So if you were a valuable player to a team, you could find out how much money another player in your position was making. That sets market value. If you are a top notch quarterback, and making $9 million dollars, you might not mind. Unless you learned of another quarterback who was making $10 million. So then you find out that you are underpaid in regards to that other quarterback. So why do sports franchises allow the money they spend on their players to be public knowlege? Wouldn't they want to keep those numbers in the dark? It would help them to sign the next guy without worry that he knows what he is actually worth. So why do these numbers get out?
If I were to guess, I would say it was the players' agents. They stand to make money if they can secure their client more money. Maybe they are the ones who leak the info, so every player can know what his co-workers are making.
So maybe, everybody should share their income with their co-workers. The people that make a lot of money might not want that information to get out, but how are they to know? For all they know, they think they have a cushion job for lots of money, but then realize that they don't even make as much as others. If they did that, what in the world would the owners do? They have their payroll in effect, but if the co-workers suddenly showed what they are worth, the owners empire would crumble.
Where do the lies, the corruption and all out deciet end? Should we be for the players? Or should we be for the owners? Do the owners make more money per year than any single player? Figure stadium attendance, memorabila, shirts, hats, endorsements, and other avenues of money coming in, and tell me if the idle owner deserves what he has. We don't empty our wallets for the owners, we empty our wallets for the players. Without the players, the owner is nothing. (See: NHL)
3 comments:
CEOs of various firms make similar, and sometimes outrageously more than, sports figures. And while sports figures salaries are made public, so are their 'stats'. So, good players can 'justify' their salaries to the general public.
CEOs, however, operate in the shadows. Most people do not know who is the CEO, COO, or CFO of any given corporation. And while everyone marvels over the size of the houses, girlfriends, cars and lifestyles of sports figures, the 'corporate elite' (we hear an awful lot about the Hollywood elite, not the other) maintains similar lifestyles and travels in the same circles.
People don't seem to care that their favorite sports figures and actors get high salaries, after all, they provide them with 'entertainment' and certain sports figures can justify their salaries based on their stats.
But what does the public get for the CEOs high salaries - layoffs, mergers that limit choices and clearly the most efficient companies are not usually consumer friendly.
But unlike sports figures, CEOs rearely have any accountability to the public, to a certain degree they do to their shareholders, who, more often than not, not made up of people like you and me.
Consider this - When Robert Allen of ATT tried to take over NCR, theacquisition fell through, costing ATT $6 Billion. Did Allen get fired? No. He got a raise of a few million. And unlike CEOs, sports figures are not interested in buying influence or influencing public policy.
Comment below is furthering my point. Not only do they show us sports figures salaries, but they show us what they have done to acheive those salaries. You can't pretend how many touchdowns you've thrown, or how many strikeouts you have. Furthermore, a players attitude, and clubhouse presence can also be used to justify his earnings. These are things that CEO's and what not are not showing. If a CEO is worth his while, where's the proof? Not only is there no proof, but there isn't even anyway to understand what he might be doing. His job is to watch the markets and budgets. Meanwhile the true value of any company lies within the quality of its product or service. How many of our technological gadgets have fallen into the cheap, get what you pay for, throw-away society category? I've had the same TV for 5 years, but my DVD player that I bought a year ago is on the blink. Is there anyway to imagine that we forgot how to make quality electronics? No, they have been cheapened by mass production and profit making. Hey, who cares if my DVD player is broken...it only cost me $50. Buy another one, right? I'd pay $300 to have a DVD player that would last me 20 years. There is a reason why we won't see that...think about it.
I bought a VCR/DVD combo from Circuit City about 2 years ago. The DVD portion started telling me there was an 'invalid disc' in the drive. Sent mail to the manufacturer. Yup, its busted, its under warranty bring it in. No place locally to bring it in and it would have cost me $70 to ship it, plus loss of the VCR so I took the money I would have spent and bought a second DVD player.
I don't fill out warranty information - they have no need to know what my income is, that has nothing to do with the product as well they have no need for my e-mail address, other than to tell me that the product has been fixed, but you know they want my e-mail address for more than that.
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