Two Sides to Every Coin

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1089195-two-sides-to-every-coin-are-professional-athletes-overpaid

In this article, the author compares both sides to the argument of whether athletes are paid too much or not.
In the case of athletes getting overpaid, the author uses a way of thinking that I haven't used yet. That compared to normal, middle-classed Americans, Payton Manning made more last year than someone in the middle class will make in their entire life-time. Are they really worth that much? And yet, we see the players and coaches going on strike to demand more money, claiming they need more money, though they're making tens of thousands of dollars every game. The article also showed this comparison of average, maximum, and minimum pay for the Bears, Bulls, Cubs and Blackhawks.

• The highest paid Bears player made over 13 million dollars in 2011
• The highest paid Cubs player will make 19 million dollars in 2012
• The highest paid Bulls player will make 13.5 million dollars in 2012
• The highest paid Blackhawks player will make 6.3 million dollars in 2012
• The lowest paid Bears player made $330,000 in 2011
• The lowest paid Cubs player will make $417,000 in 2012
• The lowest paid Bulls player will make about $850,000 in 2012
• The lowest paid Blackhawks player will make $512,000 in 2012
• The average Bears player made about 2 million dollars in 2011
• The average Cubs player will make over 6 million dollars in 2012
• The average Bulls player will make just under 5 million dollars in 2012
• The average Blackhawks player will make just over 2.7 million dollars in 2012

The article also has arguments of why the athletes get paid what they deserve. It is really us, the fans, that are making them so much money by willing to pay $75 to go to a game. Multiply that by hundreds of thousands of  people and you get a LOT of money. We also buy memorabilia and jerseys that have our favorite players names on the back. So it is really us fans that get the money to the player's hands.

Also because the athletes have such a short career, it seems almost necessary for them to have a higher salary. Where the average American will retire from the ages of 65 to 75, professional athletes will retire when they no longer have the ability to play a sport, which can end in their mid-30s.

There is also the problem of injuries. Since the athletes get injured so often, health insurance agencies will often turn down athletes to get health insurance, so they'll have to pay medical bills in full.