The leading teams are ready to pay a fortune to acquire a popular player and all the athletes you normally see on TV are paid a lot. In addition, the best betting apps attract popular sportsmen for promotions. However, it is a common misbelief that the salaries of all sportsmen are incredibly high: in fact, there is only a small percentage of outstanding athletes that earn millions, while others have their earnings on a very reasonable level. Today we will be discussing different factors affecting the athletes’ salaries in different sports, but before going into details, let us briefly list them:
- Sports.
- Performance.
- Athlete’s popularity.
- Region.
Impact of Sports
The impact of sports on the salaries of athletes is hard to underestimate. First of all, the general level of salaries between various sports differs because of the difference in popularity. In the US baseball is more popular than soccer, baseball attracts more people and money, therefore, increasing the earnings of the teams, organizers, and, in turn, the players.
However, this isn’t the only impact of sports. Different types of sports also have different career lengths: a football player obviously has a shorter career than a pool player, so it should be compensated by a higher salary. Lastly, there goes the risk level. Athletes who perform in risky sports usually have higher earnings to compensate for their possible injuries.
Performance
Unlike with the sports factor, the performance is very obvious: the better the athlete performs the higher they get paid. There are only a few sports, where the salary is based on performance, but the rule is still applicable to most of the other ones: well-performing athletes usually get their salaries increased or get better offers from other clubs that notice their performance.
Athlete’s Popularity
The last main factor we can outline is the athlete’s popularity. It mostly concerns the top-level sportsmen and is very individual, but it is still quite easy to understand. A popular athlete will attract more people to the event, making it reasonable to pay them more. Apart from the main salary, popular athletes usually get lots of side offers as well, increasing their total income even more. This also depends on sports, by the way: the less impact one single person has on the outcome of the event, the less popularity is earned by specific sportsmen.
Region
We have briefly mentioned the regional differences before, but they have a significant influence on the salary, so it is logical to outline them as well. It is quite obvious that in countries, where a specific type of sport is more popular, the salaries of the athletes are higher as well. However, the economy of the region also plays a role here as, without proper economic development of the sphere, the competitive level of salaries is impossible to achieve.
Conclusion
Summing up, we may say there are not so many general factors affecting sportsmen’s salaries, but all of them are complex. Most of them even have nothing to do with the athletes themselves. The extremely high salaries of sportsmen are only partially true as most of the athletes earn way less than the Forbes-leading world-class players. In general, the wages of athletes are reasonable with any sports: they are designed to compensate for the potential injuries and the short length of the career in a specific region.
