What is your "I can't believe they get paid for that?" thing?

[LucyStoner]

Even the pro athletes that don't make the largest amount compared to the others and only play a few years probably make more than any of us will in a lifetime. 

 

Um no.  The minimum in baseball is $490K a year.  If you wash out after 3 years, after your agent cut you have made quite a bit less than 2 million.  Someone with a college degree will average 2.4+ million in their lifetime and not generally be handing an agent any chunk of that and without paying the top tax bracket.  With bad financial habits, that money is gone, gone, gone.  This is why smart athletes have a post career plan (and hopefully a degree)...usually a whole 'nother career.  

[TravelingChris]

We bought our Toyota from a NBA player's dealer shop.  No, we didn't go there because it was owned by the NBA player- we didn't even realize that until we were buying the truck- he wasn't from a local team and he wasn't from the area, either so it wasn't like we had been hearing about him.  After I saw some NBA posters up in the showroom, I then realized he was the owner.  But we weren't big basketball fans and the reason we bought the truck there was because they had what we wanted at a good price.  Anyway, I thought he must have been one of the smarter ones.  I just heard recently he retired and we bought that truck in 2001. He has had over 10 years of dealership ownership before he retired.  I don't even know what else he invested in but that part at least was doing fine.

[kroe1]

We just finished an Adventures by Disney tour to Alaska. Our tour guides were awesome and had as much fun as we did. I cannot believe someone gets paid to do that job. I would do it for free.

[wintermom]

Um no.  The minimum in baseball is $490K a year.  If you wash out after 3 years, after your agent cut you have made quite a bit less than 2 million.  Someone with a college degree will average 2.4+ million in their lifetime and not generally be handing an agent any chunk of that and without paying the top tax bracket.  With bad financial habits, that money is gone, gone, gone.  This is why smart athletes have a post career plan (and hopefully a degree)...usually a whole 'nother career.  

 

Look at the education and feeder systems of the baseball and ice hockey players, compared to football and basketball. The baseball and hockey player don't go through college before getting to the pros, while most football and basketball players do. This means that the baseball and hockey guys are younger (I'm not going to say 'less educated' because who really knows how much actual classroom time a typical college athlete has), and those are the guys with the worse financial troubles. They just don't have a clue. What would a kid do with half a million bucks a year at age 18?

[wintermom]

I wasn't thinking of golfers. I was particularly thinking of pro football/basketball. Some of them do make a ton of money, and for a long time. But more of them suffer injuries and have to stop playing. If they haven't been looked after by managers, a good lawyer, a level head etc., they are done.  Ball players file bankruptcy frequently.  These young guys are often treated like garbage once they are no longer useful to a franchise.  Sure, they should take better care of their money, but plucked right out of college and courted might mean you're too young and too stupid to handle those first couple of million.

 

I know that there are changes being made;  new and young players are now getting orientations on finances and more. I don't know if it helps. Maybe it can for some.  I hope we see fewer 20-somethings left with nothing but a career-ending injury.  Ball players who aren't injured also need financial education.  Even guys who play for a long time often end up bankrupt.  My dh told me the average number of years a guy in the NFL will play is about 3-4 years. They've played ball  since they were little kids, are stars for a time, but they can't make a life career out of.  Maybe having been knocked around fields for so many years, they have sustained injuries to the brain which makes it more difficult to train for something else. They can't all be ESPN commentators.  Doesn't seem so glamorous to me.

 

Yk, 100k isn't that much money,  especially after taxes. Who would want to play a dangerous sport for that? Especially if you're constantly getting knocked around and injured. Football, boxing, hockey can all cause severe brain damage.  What athletes make 100K-- except maybe women athletes? ;)   Candlepin bowlers?  :)

 

We're taxed heavily, and percentage varies by state.  I'm going by dh's bonuses. I always say, "Don't tell me how much it is, just tell me the numbers on the check."    ;)

 

Why not include tennis and golf players in this mix of over-paid people? They certainly are part of the inflated salary issue. They were perhaps smarter in picking a sport that has fewer career-ending injuries.

 

The issue is the inflated salary. What these people do with the salary is completely their choice, and how long they can get the salary is also not the issue. The salary is still too high, IMO.

 

Starting NHL hockey players minimum salary is just over $200,000. These guys may play for the development teams and never play in a pro game. They still get the salary, though.

[Retired]

I'm love capitalism but seriously pisses me off that anyone that is in entertainment will get paid big buck musician, actress, football players.  We Americans as a culture  (guess the rest of the world is the same just taken about my fellow citizens are why they get paid so much.    The ones that deserve some dang money are the ones that even the rich folks expect to be their for them.  They need the police, fire fighters, teachers, nurses, etc.   I mean seriously the fire fighters and police I know make less than me a RN.  I don't make big buck.  I've been hit, pissed on, gun pulled on me.   I go to work and better know what I'm doing or you could die.  The police and fire fighters go into dangerous crap.  I personally think we that serve America should be paid worth a damn.  I mean yeah healthcare expensive, government expensive but people don't want to pay us.  They want to spend extra money on rock concerts, football championships and porn LOL    I will also add my oldest son is a college kid and lead singer/guitarist in a mental band LOL  He does play excellent and has taken several years of advance music theory courses.   He promised me he would get a degree before trying to make his millions screaming and rockin :w00t:    Oh can you tell I had one hell of a 4th of July 12 hour shift yeah saw some big money folks, some drug heads, drunks and etc.  They all expected me to not kill them :rofl:   But I wonder would they pay me maybe a $150,000 year.  I'm not greedy don't want to be a millionaire I just want to be paid for the damn danger and abuse.  I mean wasn't someone in the thread rationalizing  why athletes  should be paid so much.   I bet they never had to hold down a schizophrenic  on cocaine with a knife and try to shoot them up with a sedative.  I mean that's freaking dangerous. :scared:

[Scrub Jay]

Pretty much any big name actor. Not that they get paid but how much. I grew up on a dairy farm--that's work!! Dressing up and pretending to be someone else--not so much.

But when you look at the $ their movie brings in to the studios, don't they deserve a fair share?

 

It is a lot but it isn't like the $ isn't there.

[LibraryLover]

Even the pro athletes that don't make the largest amount compared to the others and only play a few years probably make more than any of us will in a lifetime. 

 

Maybe,  but the thing is they often make millions for others.

[LibraryLover]

But when you look at the $ their movie brings in to the studios, don't they deserve a fair share?

 

It is a lot but it isn't like the $ isn't there.

 

And what about the producers, directors, agents, lawyers etc who keep chugging along in their careers long after the folks they represented are has -beens?  

 

 Louis B Mayer -- now here's a a tangent-- didn't give a hoot about firing actors --people who basically put their lives in his hands- -when they were no longer young enough etc to be profitable to him.  When stars crash and burn, or stop being pretty, the folks who keep the entertainment industry going just move on to the next young thing.  Unless the entertainment industry does a restructure ;), I think actors should take their cut while they can/as others make money due to their success. 

[Scrub Jay]

Exactly. And I'm going to guess there are many actors who barely scrape by.

Very true.

 

My husband is in the industry and the show he is currently working on films in Canada. So not only do the actors need to rent there but also keep a home in LA since you never know what will happen with a show.

 

They aren't scraping by but I'm sure the general public assumes they are rolling in the dough more than their actual reality.

[I.Dup.]

Haven't read the replies.

 

I heard on NPR about a $73,000 vacation for your dog. Apparently the dog gets massages, gets walked by a guy in a tuxedo, etc.

 

or, you could just let them roll around in the spot where the bird died a week ago. Seriously, $73,000???

 

I struggle with jealousy when I hear about ideas people have had, or what some people get paid. I wish I had thought of that (like the Boppy or the Bumbo for babies, for example).

[Mrs Mungo]

This is a tough issue because one person's waste is another person's vital issue. Someone earlier in the thread said something about "the government," but people paid by government include a lot of vital services-fire fighters, police officers, teachers, military personnel, etc. I think mayors do an important job, but the vast majority of them don't get paid much at all (if anything).

 

I do think it is positively *insane* for someone to get paid something like $30 million dollars for acting in a movie. Yes, there is a lot of money in movies. But, it takes a *lot* of people to make movies. Those giant salaries mean a lot of families have been priced out of seeing movies at the theater. Same with sports. Which Thomas Friedman book is it where he talks about sports and how people don't go to games as much now because they can watch them on tv? I disagree with that assertion. People don't go to games anymore because it is too expensive to take your family on a regular basis. For my family to attend a NC Hurricanes hockey game would cost us $175 in tickets alone for the cheapest nosebleed seats. By contrast, we could go see the local SPHL team for $60 and sit in decent seats. 

 

I don't really care to hear about the injuries when my dh jumps out of planes and gets shot at for a living for much less than the $8.5 million that the star Hurricanes player makes a year. He's been in this line of work for nearly 20 years. I bet we know more people with knee and hip replacements than most professional athletes. 

[Miss Marple]

The fellas that fish for TV shows. They sit out and fish all day long. They get to go to cool places and fish for elusive fish. My youngest is sure that he would LOVE that job :) Getting paid to do what one loves...it's something he can dream about :)

[bookfiend]

My boys want to get paid for building with LEGO when they grow up! It's a fair job aspiration, compared to many paid jobs out there. lol

 

 

So does my son and every othe boy I know.  I think it will be a highly competitive field. :lol:

[Laura Corin]

Pretty much any big name actor. Not that they get paid but how much. I grew up on a dairy farm--that's work!! Dressing up and pretending to be someone else--not so much.

 

I agree with you about bad actors.  Acting well is really hard though.  I spent years acting badly, so I should know.

 

L

[lynn]

I have been looking for a guitar teacher for dd.  around here they get average $45 an HOUR for teaching an 8 year old to play guitar.