In our local sport page today there was a small sidebar
article of three short paragraphs. The title was “Riley among Heat taking pay
cut.” The headline caught my attention so I read it. The gist is that all employees
of the Miami Heat are taking an across the board 20% pay cut to avoid layoffs.
I thought well that is good everyone keeps his or her job but the last sentence
blew me away. “Player salaries are not being affected.” Whoa, wait a minute.
How about those fat cat players volunteering to take a pay cut? How about
turning in the Hummers and Escalades for a normal vehicle and donating the gas
saving to a homeless shelter. Talk about Nero fiddling while Rome is burning. I
guess sport really does reflect society. We have a society of greed and excess.
I feel for that poor janitor or the equipment man who took a 20% cut having to
pick up Dwayne Wades jockstrap off the locker room floor. 20% off of their salary will significantly affect their
lives. I know Iam from a different era, but this upsets me.
1 Comment
Charles
Well I agree with the feelings, but not necessarily with the logic.
If I was a player, and asked to take a pay cut, I would wonder what they heck the Heat is doing with the millions of dollars they take in, plus whatever free subsidies they are getting from the City in their use of the arena, that they can’t run the business well enough to make money.
I do feel for the janitor, but without the players, the janitor doesn’t have any job, nor does anyone else.
And if the management of the NBA didn’t want to give the players the money they are giving them, they didn’t have to. These are contracts, negotiated by adults, freely entered into. And the money comes from other adults, who are either the fans paying for tickets, or are mutli-million dollar corporations, paying for access to the fans who watch on TV by buying commercials.
And how are the players the only ones that you are calling greedy in this system? If the money didn’t go to them, it would go to the owners, usually older, well-off, millionaires. I’m wondering what the difference is between the two groups that would make you call one set of millionaires greedy, while ignoring the other set of millionaires. Hmmmm.