There are many different professional sports, some more popular than others, but the 4 major ones are: Baseball, Football, Basketball, and Hockey. All of these sports pay their athletes significantly different salaries, even though all sports are arguably of the same degree of difficulty. I will be searching to answer the question: Which sport pays their athletes the most money and why? This article argues that baseball players make the most money because there is no salary cap and their season is significantly longer than any other sport.
Baseball Players’ Salaries Greater than other Major Sports
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| SOURCE: USA Today |
Giancarlo Stanton recently signed the largest contract in sports history. Stanton accepted a deal from the Marlins that will pay him $325 million over 13 years. According to an article on USA Today, “5 Reasons MLB Stars Make So Much More Than Other Pro Athletes,” Ted Berg writes, “29 baseball players have signed contracts worth more than Kobe Bryant’s deal with the Lakers, the largest among any of the three other major U.S. sports.” Out of the NBA, NHL, and NFL, Kobe Bryant has signed the largest contract, but there are 29 different baseball players who have signed contracts larger than Kobe’s $136.4 million contract! How does that happen?
The biggest reason: There is no salary cap and no max contracts in the MLB. The NFL, NHL, and NBA all have pretty strict salary caps that have serious penalties for exceeding the salary cap. Without a salary cap, MLB teams can pay their elite players ridiculous amounts of money. Ted Berg also states, “Major League Baseball does have a luxury tax for teams with huge payrolls, but the threshold is so high that it won’t likely affect Stanton’s Marlins anytime soon. And big-market clubs like the Yankees and Dodgers are routinely willing to blow past that threshold to sign marquee free agents.” This means teams can spend as much money as they want in order to sign the best players in the league, whereas LeBron James has a max contract which means he can only get paid a certain amount of money. If there were no max contracts he would most likely have the largest contract in sports because he is so valuable to his team. No salary cap and no max contracts allows baseball players to get paid significantly more than the other major sports.
Another reason is because the MLB season is so much longer than any other season, they play 162 games each season. In the article, “5 Reasons MLB Stars Make So Much More Than Other Pro Athletes,” Ted Berg wrote, “Because the baseball season is so long, teams provide tons and tons of reliable, popular content for regional sports networks.” Obviously more games should mean the players deserve more money and because of the amount of games, each team makes more money which can then go to the players who deserve it.
The biggest reason: There is no salary cap and no max contracts in the MLB. The NFL, NHL, and NBA all have pretty strict salary caps that have serious penalties for exceeding the salary cap. Without a salary cap, MLB teams can pay their elite players ridiculous amounts of money. Ted Berg also states, “Major League Baseball does have a luxury tax for teams with huge payrolls, but the threshold is so high that it won’t likely affect Stanton’s Marlins anytime soon. And big-market clubs like the Yankees and Dodgers are routinely willing to blow past that threshold to sign marquee free agents.” This means teams can spend as much money as they want in order to sign the best players in the league, whereas LeBron James has a max contract which means he can only get paid a certain amount of money. If there were no max contracts he would most likely have the largest contract in sports because he is so valuable to his team. No salary cap and no max contracts allows baseball players to get paid significantly more than the other major sports.
Another reason is because the MLB season is so much longer than any other season, they play 162 games each season. In the article, “5 Reasons MLB Stars Make So Much More Than Other Pro Athletes,” Ted Berg wrote, “Because the baseball season is so long, teams provide tons and tons of reliable, popular content for regional sports networks.” Obviously more games should mean the players deserve more money and because of the amount of games, each team makes more money which can then go to the players who deserve it.
In conclusion, baseball players make significantly more than other major sports because there is no salary cap in the MLB, this means that teams can basically spend as much money as they want in order to sign the top players. Another reason is that the MLB season is extremely long which means more money going to teams from the amount of games and then this money is given to the players.
Future Research: Why do all sports have salary caps but baseball does not?
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