JoJo given $148,000,000 by 76ers
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@Fightsongwriter While I, on principle, agree with you, I completely disagree with the premise.
I think athletes and entertainers are absurdly overpaid and provide very little benefit to society in general. But so what. If there is someone out there willing to pay that kind of money for what they do, then more power to them for getting it. I don’t understand it, but I don’t begrudge them for attaining that kind of money.
I don’t particularly like the product, so I don’t watch the NBA at all. Same for most sports. I stopped watching all professional sports during all the strikes and lockouts of the past when it was clear to me that neither the players nor the owners really cared about the fans. I figured if they didn’t care about me, why should I support them.
But if there is somebody willing to pay that kind of money for that kind of product, good on them for grabbing it.
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@Kong @Fightsongwriter - I personally think that athletes are paid fairly. They are professionals in a big, big money business. The owners make decisions on entering collective bargaining agreements, and on what to pay in balance with their product and the industry. The pro athletes have something very few have – highly elite skills. The highly elite brain surgeon gets paid very well. The key to making money is doing something of which many others are willing to pay, or forced to pay. Paying Embiid was purely a business decision. I do wonder if there is some high premium insurance policy in place there regarding the contract. Of course, this is a demonstration of oppression in America where folks that can put a ball through a hoop can make many times more in a year than the nurse who cares for cancer patients can make in a career. We know it’s really just supply and demand.
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This is capitalism. This is business. The 76ers had to compete to keep JoJo. And it is obvious they see JoJo as bringing back a bigger return than their investment.
No one complains about some of these CEOs’ pay… and those guys don’t risk their health and few even create anything, definitely not the return they cost… but they are in a position of leverage, an elite leverage… and that is part of the capitalist model, too.
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@drgnslayr Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that they aren’t paid what the market will bring, just that for me, personally, they don’t provide any value.
I find the entertainment industry and the sports industry to be way over the top for what they do. Are they elite athletes? Absolutely. I just don’t place as great a value on that that others do/might. Clearly enough people do, so they can get that kind of money.
As for CEOs, you will get no argument from me on that point either. I think they are grossly overpaid as well. But taht doesn’t mean that I want to limit their salaries or anything else. If they can get that kind of money, good on them. Same with professional athletes. I find the pay silly, but good for them.
If I had that kind of talent, I would take it too, silly or not.
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@Kong I would disagree on CEOs. Many times, CEO pay is tied to company production. Many also bring elite management and business skills to the specific industry in which they are employed. Many work very long hours, and sacrifice by moving their families from coast to coast to advance their standing. Many are very highly educated and have worked hard to get where they are. Look at Bill Self as a coach – he’s a CEO of a multi-million dollar program. High knowledge and skills specific to his industry. I doubt many of us argue his pay rate as being unfair given what he produces. We can be irritated by their pay vs. the average Joe, but the harsh reality is that the average Joe’s job can be done by nearly a large, large number of people. It’s why teachers don’t get paid much. Supply and demand. And the reality is that many folks that are very highly paid are in a precarious spot – take away their niche, and they are an average Joe (or near to it).
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Our big guy just has to stay healthy and prove all the haters wrong. Every Jayhawk fan on here knows what he is capable of!
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@HighEliteMajor I hope you did not just compare a very talented Jayhawk hoops star to a surgeon of any stripe, and insinuate their pay and skill levels are anywhere near the same level. Even the best surgeons, at the best hospital in the region, where I work make no where near the obscene amounts of money the top athletes are making. And they actually provide a vital function to society, such as…oh, saving lives, as compared to what the elite athlete provides, such as…oh, a line of apparel and manipulating a ball in some impressive fashion. Surly you meant those with elite skills get paid handsomely, but only the top 1% of executives come close to equating the out of proportion wage that top athletes make. It is not about fairness, it about societal imbalance.
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@mayjay I am no trumpian, but I am also not ashamed to reveal my values or faith affiliation either. To quote the great Popeye, I yam what I yam…
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@Fightsongwriter The difference comes from how many people are willing to pay to watch athletes or entertainers use their skills (and how much they will pay).
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If an NBA franchise is coughing $148M, adidas’ accountant better get ready for a serious spike in marketing expenses shortly with a rise shoe sales in a year or so when Embid wins a ring. But they can prolly afford it, if Rick and The Ville off the gravy train.
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@Fightsongwriter There are about 50,000 surgeons in the US and about 450 NBA players. In their profession, NBA players are far more elite. And as I referenced earlier and as @mayjay reiterated, NBA players do something that folks are willing to pay high dollar for. If their pay was cut, the owners and team administration would make all of the money the players didn’t. Value to society isn’t measured in money. Compensation generally flows from how many other people can do the same job and the demand for that activity. Surgeons are valuable of course but that value is relative to the number of others that can do the job.
I am puzzled by the “societal imbalance” comment. If you care to elaborate, I’d be interested.
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Additional info on this contract … certain injuries could limit the total paid to Embiid, it appears.
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It may be obscene what the players make, but if they didn’t get that money then it would just all go the the Billionaire owners. It’s not like it would magically go to teachers and doctors instead. This is really the best thing for the short term as far as an economical stimulus. The players have famously lavish spending habits- they are very good for the local economy! Billionaires don’t typically blow money that way. You just figure whatever the salary cap is a large percentage of that money will be spent whereas if the Billionaires still possessed that money it would just go on their Scrooge McDuck money pile.
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Also, all of that income for the athletes is taxed as salary, whereas the owners likely wouldn’t be taxed if they kept that revenue due to accounting and such. So really, athletes getting huge salaries is a financial benefit for the economy and that money does go to teachers, police, fire, infrastructure, etc. because it is taxed at the full rate since it is income.
If athletes made less, the billionaires would keep it and it likely would not be taxed at the full rate. We should all be in favor of athlete salaries going up, if for no other reason than it drives up tax revenues.
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@dylans I agree with your sentiments until you start talking about what billionaires do with their money. Obviously someone that is wealthy would have some actual cash stockpiles in a safe somewhere. But the fact is that it is the rich that provide the vehicles that drive our economy. The rich own businesses and invest in businesses directly. Without the rich, a large chunk of jobs would simply not exist. The offering of publically traded stock is essentially a capital fund-raiser for a company to expand (and employ more people). Bonds of course serve that function without the ownership piece. If a rich person invests with a brokerage firm or hedge fund, those employees make money off of the rich person, and then spend that money. The investments themselves also trigger economic activity. Heck, even if a rich person parks their money in banks, it is in large part that money that is used by the bank, for example, to fund a mortgage loan, fund construction projects, give car loans, invest themselves, etc.
Folks dislike rich people generally (not saying you) because of course they have what most want. And many are very dislikeable. But without that sort of money and business acuity, our economy would be dead.
It’s like the myopic unions that demand pay raises, then watch the company go out of business; or the fools that demand a $15 an hour wage for a job literally anyone could do. They don’t understand that there is a business owner who usually works longer hours, and has put his/her financial future into the business, and simply won’t engage in that activity if there isn’t a reasonable payout.
NBA players in my opinion should get every dollar they can or want to get, so long as the business can operate efficiently.
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I hear what you are saying.
I think we all go into a kind of shock at the level of money floating around in sports and business.
Our modern economy is showing an increase in the space between the “haves” and the “have nots.”
I don’t think most of us “have nots” lose any sleep over not being one of the “haves”… but it should make us all wonder if we will earn enough to just maintain a certain comfortable standard of living.
Personally… think I’d rather go fishing than spend my mornings with investment advisors directing me where to invest my 100’s of millions!
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@HighEliteMajorI think every community should have at least one ultra rich person/family. If they are altruistic all will benefit. There is a resident Billionaire in Garden City Kansas who just put up the bulk of the cash needed for a massive shopping center to go in. His investment into the community allowed - Menards, PetCo, Hobby Lobby, Rib Crib, Dick’s sporting goods, Old Chicago, and a half dozen other businesses a place to land in Garden City. In a town of 30,000 people that is huge!
I stand by my statement though, many of the Super rich I’ve met get to a point that the money is just a collection. And just like any hardcore collector they can’t wait to add to the collection. Most lottery winners/Pro athletes don’t have the same long term goals or ability to protect the wealth.
Ultra rich can provide opportunities for others on a scale people of normal wealth can’t touch, but NBA ballers are much better for the strip clubs…And for short term economic benefit. The players are pretty much a local economic stimulus package.
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@drgnslayr It would be one hell of a problem to have though!
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Includes JoJo highlights from the 76ers victory tonight, including a 33 ft 3 ptr and a monster dunk. Scored 22 pts in 15 mins, 7 rebs. Not a bad return to action!
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Oubre 10 points, 14 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 blocks in 26 minutes.
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Embiid is the only player besides Wilt to average 28.7 pts / 36 minutes his rookie year. Embiid Dominant in soph. opener
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wrwlumpy said:
Rihana will call him now.
Not sure Ri can call him until she gets the appearance of being de-programmed. Just kidding about Ri.
But Music biz does appear pretty strict about following the rise-fall narrative with their Monark, er, Majestick, er, mega Divas and other acts. I grew up before and during the liminal era when music migrated to MTV and the whole “rags-to riches-to drugs-to destruction-to survivors tell the tale” began to appear to be programmed to help with narco revenues and normalize pharmaco-self-destruction. It was such clever business to use music to train kids first to recreational drug experimentation, because the whole pop music drug normalization thing conditioned each generation to think rise-fall normal and then medicate the fall with Prozac etc.
But I’m still a bit suspicious about actual MK Diva. It appears feasible, but I’m not sure it would be necessary. So many seem to crave the adulation. Active Mind control seems kind of unnecessary.
What do you make of the allegations of Monark programming in the musik, er, music biz? I did a bit of reading about this and was pretty saddened by it. Hoping it all ain’t so, Joe.
But since the day the music died, a lot of Lovecraftian demons have appeared increasingly to haunt the perceptual periphery of pop. And it goes without saying that if the national security state wants “full spectrum dominance”, well, then pop musik, er, music would have to be brought significantly under control, as a tool for culture programming, like movies, and sports, right? (That was my gossamer thin tie in to sports there!)
Along these lines, how about that Mel B photo of Mel in a dress with “YOU DO NOT OWN ME” on the front and the big one eye graphik on the back?! That could be interpreted many ways!
Whatta world, eh?
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@HighEliteMajor Well that certainly was a well stated case for justifying trickle down economics, which in theory seems logical, but in practice seems to not work out too well for anyone but the rich.
Should people be richly rewarded for working harder, smarter and/or better than everyone else? Of course they should, incentive is what keeps our race advancing. Unfortunately the obscenely rich tilt the playing field away from level by buying laws and regulations that give them an unfair advantage allowing them to keep hoarding and growing their uber piles of money. Rich is fine, the uber rich cheating to become more uber rich, is an obscene abuse of a broken system.
Back to the topic, does Joel provide the same societal value as a brain surgeon… no, not even close in my opinion. Probably not even the same value as most school teachers who educate our young. But we live in a land of supply and demand and as HEM pointed out, very few can do what Joel does and people are willing to pay to watch him do it. He did not buy or cheat his way to that offer, so if we, as fans, want to indirectly give him our money by supporting professional sports to the level we do, well, I’ll bet not one of us would decline his offer. And as others have said, better him than the owners.
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@StLJhawk Rich stay rich. But without the rich, who funds the jobs? It’s just a harsh and inconvenient truth. And remember, rich people use their stockpiles of money. They just don’t have it sitting stagnant. Winners and losers are the unfortunate reality of a system that created the greatest economic power the world has ever known. Life ain’t fair. Trickle down is a misnomer. It’s a flow of economic activity. Trickle down has been used in a way where one assumes if you cut taxes for the rich, and coddle the rich, that will “trickle down.” I’m not a huge believer in that. I am just not in favor of penalizing them or taxing them at higher rates.
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I respect your opinion sir, and we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
