The huge salaries of some top athletes from an economic perspective Essay

The huge salaries of some top athletes from an economic perspective - Essay Example The paper tells that in the opinions of many researchers and media personalities, the salaries of athletes are too high. However, judging from a series of empirical studies and economic theory arguments, the opposite of this notion is true. Few players earn extremely high wages, most likely due to the innate characteristics of the sport labour markets both on the production and on demand sides. Through the introduction of broadcasting channels in the second half of the 20th century, the salaries of players have substantially grown, as people have exhibited exceeding interest in the need to watch sports as a preferable entertainment mode. Looking into the wages of the highest earning players, boxing produced the top two earners. Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao top the list with the latter earning $160million, $140 less than that earned by the former. Soccer had the third and four largest earners Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, who pocket $79.6million and $73.8million respectiv ely. Roger Federer and Lebron James become the highest paid tennis and basketball players, earning $67 million and $64.8million respectively. The demand for labour in the sport market is a derived demand, which depends on the final product’s demand produced by the labour. The rigid supply of sport stars explains why the wages of professional sport stars is relatively high. The quality of demand and production of professional sport stars is not dependent on the increasing or decreasing numbers of consumers, though the market has a structure that can prevent practices such as free riding.