Professional Sports - NBA Should Enforce a Hard Salary Cap Essay

The NBA’s salary cap varies from year to year based off the leagues revenue under their CBA, short for collective bargaining agreement. A new CBA was just reached this December for another & years. For example, in 2014 the NBA inked a new deal with ABC/ESPN and Turner that will keep the league on those broadcasters' channels through 2025 for the cool price of $2.67 billion per year. Just because of that deal once it kicked in the salary cap increased by 30 million dollars. In collective bargaining agreement, you get the rules and regulations for contracts, salary caps, and anything else related to that. The NBA operates under a soft cap but certain components of the NBA's system function as a hard cap under specific circumstances. A soft cap gives teams a chance to retain the players they have and give them more money instead of them leaving for a bigger market

Having salary caps for sports teams is an easy way to create equal opportunity for every team within a league. Without salary caps, the wealthiest teams pay for the

There are five major sports leagues in the United States; Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, the National Basketball Association (which has what is known as a “soft salary cap), the National Football League, and the National Hockey League. Of these five, only baseball lacks what is known as a salary cap. A salary cap is the upper limit of the combined salaries for a team’s players. In the other four sports I mentioned, having to work within the boundaries of a salary cap is a balancing act, to gain an advantage at one position requires you to be at a disadvantage at another position. For example, to have a top tier quarterback in the NFL like Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers and the large salary they command, a team might lack the funds to sign a top tier linebacker or cornerback. With Major League Baseball lacking a salary cap, this balancing act vanishes and teams could sign anyone and everyone they wished. This causes a competitive imbalance that is hurting the sport. Too often we see the same teams making the playoffs and winning championships like the San

What’s more intriguing is the fact that some question whether NBA players are overpaid. Nathan (22) indicated that overpayment in the NBA is problematic. Statistically some players are overpaid based on poor or sub-par performance. These players are highly sought after because they are proficient in one aspect of their game such as three point shooting or they may be a defensive force. However, these same specialized players may be a major liability in other areas i.e., the three point shooter may be a poor defender and the defensive force may be a poor free throw shooter. Whatever the issue, overpayment in the NBA is a concern. The reason for payment is to fairly compensate a player for his play. However, in the NBA it seems as if compensation is a reward for past performance and anticipated or expected future performance. However, past performance and expected performance may not be good indicators of fair compensation. NBA owners and general managers often over spend for a player that they feel will meet and immediate

Forbes says “If payment begins and there is no cap, the bidding war among colleges for some players will be hard to control. Are people ready for the few colleges with the financial resources (which would be ten to twenty schools) getting virtually all the best football and basket players? (Forbes) With pay to the coming to the student the want and drive to play in the NFL. There would not be any incentive to play in the professional league, when they are making good money in the college level. College is an amateur sport and should be treated that that way and not glorify the students athletes.

Twenty-five million dollars made per year. Over one hundred fifty-four thousand dollars made per game. Over forty-seven thousand dollars earned per at bat. Sounds a little ridiculous, does it not? That is what current Texas Ranger shortstop Alex Rodriguez earns to play the game of baseball (azcentral.com). Baseball is a game that children have been playing in schoolyards and fields for the past one hundred years. It may not be a game anymore. On the Major League level it has become a business. This is where the problem starts.

The fans that come to watch the athletes and who pay nearly $20 to get in the ballpark are padding the pockets of these owners. Statistics taken from online site http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2001 /03/30/news/baseball/ show that baseball ticket prices have gone up from $16.67 to $18.99 in just one year. A quote from the same online site http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2001/03/30/news /baseball/ wrote by Chris Isidore says, "Baseball fans going through the turnstiles on opening day across the nation Monday will be paying about 13 percent more than they did last year, according to a survey of prices…The increase makes baseball the sport with the fastest growing prices." Baseball in the United States is no longer America's Pastime. Baseball has changed to a high priced business, where average players make millions and above average players make tens of millions. To make the situation even worse, the dumbfounded owners and greedy sports agents who contaminate the game and the talented young athletes playing in it, control this business.

From chapter 6-3: Does Baseball Need a Salary Cap? by Neil deMause Perhaps no two words in baseball generate as much controversy and emotion as "salary cap. " Depending on whom you ask, a salary cap would either save the game, destroy the players' union, provide hope for small-market fans, pervert the free market, or create a tangle of red tape that would turn every trade deadline into a battle of wits among dueling "capologists. " Whenever owners and players have to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement -- the next tussle is scheduled for after the 2006 season -- discussion of a cap is sure to follow.

Certain athletes bring more than others. For instance, when Lonzo Ball the face of the LA Lakers attended the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), he helped the Bruins basketball team gather 75.2% more people in the stands. More future college athletes that are already making headlines in high schools like Zion Williamson, Mac McClung, and Jordan McCabe are projected to help their schools bring even more revenue. Some may argue that if the schools were to compensate the athletes then the games might become less competitive, but professional athletes are compensated millions of dollars and their games are so competitive that around 32,000 people attend

Salaries in Baseball are skyrocketing every year. Why would a salary cap be needed? It would be needed to help keep ticket prices down, and help make for a more even level of competition for all of the teams. A salary cap is needed to keep baseball thriving in the future, to keep the game exciting and enjoyable to watch for every fan.

Salary Cap will also affect motivation of the players if they do not get what satisfy them. They will be majorly playing towards maximizing their wealth rather than wining and keeping the spirit of the game alive.

Attention material/ Credibility Material: Wouldn't it be great to make 31.3 million dollars a year and an additional 47 million dollars in endorsements simply to play a game? Michael Jordan, along with many other professional athletes thinks so. In the 1996 season, playing 3,106 minutes Michael Jordan made 170,000 dollars a day whether he played or not, equalling out to be 160 dollars a second. Even more unbelievable are Mike Tyson's earnings in his match with

In Major League Baseball the general belief is that the more a team spends on their payroll the more games they will win. With the absence of a salary cap baseball may seam unfair to the smaller market teams who can't bare the salary costs that the larger market teams can. In Michael Lewis' Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game Lewis depicts just how the Oakland Athletics have been winning in an unfair game for almost a decade. The A's are a small market team that doesn't have nearly the amount of money at their disposal that their competitors in the American League do. However this past season the A's won their fourth American League West championship in the last seven years while having the lowest payroll in their division. In

The value of entertainment in our society is arguable. We as a society constantly search for new ways to entertain ourselves; professional sports are a major contribution to our source of entertainment. If those who support athletes and their sports have no problem paying to see them,

If I could pay someone $25 million a year to get him/her on my team and generate $30 million, why not hire that player? The salary cap for the NFL is $102.5 million per team, and we currently have 32 teams, so we the public are paying 3.28 billion to those teams. Currently America is in a 11 trillion dollar debt, if athletes could get paid $150,000/year then we could save 1 billion dollars a year. The monetary worth of athletes exceeds the value that any one individual is actually worth. League officials should be using salary caps, negotiations, and legal tactics. Athletes' salaries are in increasing problem for the economy of our modern world. Although the sports have their own equal distributions, the overwhelming salaries of the leagues' highest paid players have made the average of salaries higher and higher each year.