The Irony of it All

So, Colorado is pretty much as full as it gets when it comes to professional sports teams. The Avs, the Broncos, Nuggets, Rockies, Mammoth, Crush, Rapids, Eagles, and Outlaws. Hockey, Football, Baseball, Indoor Lacrosse, Indoor Football, Soccer, Minor league hockey, and Outdoor lacrosse, respectively.

I don't think there's a person in this world who can claim that the major sports stars aren't overpaid. Don't get me wrong, I think the common perception that movie stars and professional athletes don't do anything is completely off-base. One look at a practice, schedule or injury would tell you that about sports, and watching a making-of would tell you that about (many) movie stars. However, they still get grossly overpaid.

To prove my point, David Beckham, considered by many to be the best Soccer player in the world, recently came over to the US (LA) to play for the MLS. His salary for for Galaxy will be earning him 90$ a second. The funny thing is the league made a bunch of changes to make it possible. His salary is double that of the next highest player in the league. The MLS changed some rules (I'm a little fuzzy) to get make it possible, but basically I believe a team couldn't spend over 2 mill on a single player. Most of the good players in the league are pulling down about 200k. Definitely a lot of money, but not for a sports star. He'll do wonders for the league, but I think it's funny just how much power they gave him. How much importance.

Baseball has guys signing 90 million dollar contracts. Football, basketball and hockey now have salary caps, meaning they can only spend a certain amount of money on players' salaries, but baseball doesn't have that yet. So the point here is, I know this'll be a shocker, professional athletes are paid way too much in America and Canada.

I was reading this article the other day about this player in some city in Colorado, who played for the Colorado Ice. Now Colorado has new sports teams popping up all the time lately, and since people keep going to the games, they keep making new ones. But I had never heard of The Ice, so I read the article. It's some joke of a minor league for football. I guess most of the players are so awful a high school team could beat them. Most of them play just to get noticed by a NFL scout. 200$ a game. Bus rides to NE, WY, NM, etc. Most of them hold down day jobs, because 200$ is not that much money earning. It's the hard knock life.

One of my more favorite teams is the Mammoth. Indoor lacrosse. The team moved from some other city, so they were already pretty good by the time they got here. They had a guy who was apparently the Joe Sakic, John Elway, Michael Jordon, etc of the Lacrosse world. Gary Gait. He was extremely well-known... for a lacrosse player. Wanna know what the Michael Jordon of lacrosse did during the day? He was an elementary school teacher. The best of the best couldn't make enough to just play.

Now this could easily go into playing the world's smallest violin for these poor athletes. I don't feel sorry for them, and I doubt they'd want me to. We should all be so lucky to be doing what we want in life. My point here is the contrast. Obviously the reason hockey, basketball, football, etc. sports icons get paid so much is because they are bringing in a ton of money. People throw down 70$ a pop for Avs tickets, and those are the cheap seats. I went to a bunch of games during the 2001 playoffs (the year they won the cup) and the seats were on the glass. Guess how much? 180$ a piece. That's a lot of money.

We worship the Kobes and Peytons. The Forsbergs and A-Rods. They're a beacon of hope that a person can strive to be something great. Just like movie stars, they are what we wish we could be, had we more disciple, or put more effort. Maybe someone chose to get married or go to college, so the decision he or she did make wasn't even a regret. But that doesn't change the fact that we sit down, watch Patrick Roy make 5 insane flipping saves in a row, or Chris Drury fend off 3 opposing players, then fake to the left, and stuff in the puck on the right side of the net. (I really miss the good old days.) and we can't help but wish that was us.

There's so much here. America's lost dreams, our materialism, our completely out-of-whack priorities. Escapism at it's best. Honestly, I don't really know what my point here is. I was thinking about it, and it just blew me away. I almost felt sorry for the dude earning 200$ a game. Being "forced" to ride a BUS of all things, to each city.

It just blows me away. I could have a huge conversation about this, but thought I'd blog. Any thoughts?