Is there any sports fans, fans of any sports at all, that believe there is too much money in sports? For example, sports personalities being paid too much, while the prices of tickets and hotdogs for us goes up and up?
The first example I put forward is that of the very current Cristiano Ronaldo saga here in English football:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 094720.stm
Transfer fee: ?????????80,000,000 ($131,800,000)
Initial Weekly pay: ?????????170,000 ($280,000)
Rising to: ?????????556,000 ($916,000) a WEEK!
Also, during the winter transfer window, this was a big story:
http://www.epltalk.com/manchester-city- ... llion/4111
$400,000,000... for ONE player. This deal fell through as the player did not want to go to Manchester City, but obviously the record for the highest transfer fee would have been completey obliterated.
Is it a similar story with American sports? Just simply unbelievable amounts of money being thrown around, players earning in a week what you earn in a lifetime? The question basically is in the title, do you think there is too much money in modern day sport?
For me, I have to say yes, when it costs me ?????????2.50 just for a pie when I go to the game, or ?????????30 just for a ticket to one game and the only reason for these high prices is to pay for the ridiculously high wages of the players.
The other argument of course is that money is all relative, in football (soccer) for example, if you own a player like Cristiano Ronaldo, many hundreds of thousands of people will buy club replica shirts with his name on at ?????????40 a time. TV companies will pay much more money for larger contracts to broadcast their games worldwide etc etc... Basically, the players earns the club ?????????300,000,000 over a period of 5 years and so he IS worth the ?????????80,000,000 price tag and ?????????556,000 a week wage bill.
But for me, all I want to do is go and see the sport I love, being played by people who love playing it and for it not to cost me the earth to do so!
Any thoughts?