Albert Pujols will earn $250 million over the next ten years to play professional baseball for the Anaheim Angels; that’s $25 million a year under the terms of his new contract.
That’s all I know about Pujols. He gets paid very well to play with a small white ball. I rarely follow professional sports on television or in the newspaper. Admittedly, some human sports dramas, for example the Olympic Games, can be exciting. But huge paychecks make pro sports hard to enjoy; many of us simply can’t afford to attend many sport venues. Inflated ticket prices are required to help pay for the giant salaries being earned by the top players.
Of course, simply bellyaching over high professional sports salaries won’t solve the problem. In this sports-crazed society, lowering player salaries isn’t going to happen. So instead, let’s increase the salaries for the rest of us so they are commensurate with that of the sports elite.
Here’s how it works. Under this sports celebrity wage-matching approach, if we’re flipping burgers at a local hamburger joint, we’ll suddenly earn far more than our current minimum wage allows. Let’s suppose the owner gets paid an equivalent salary as the sports celebrity. Of course, we should expect the restauranteur to receive, say, 50 percent of that paycheck to pay for the restaurant’s operating costs plus his own salary. He’ll still have half of the $25 million sports celebrity salary–$12.5 million–to split among his 20 employees for their wages. That will give each of us burger flippers an annual salary of $625,000. I can live with that. Of course, the cost of a burger will rise accordingly.
But don’t worry. Remember, we’re all going to receive a sports celebrity-comparable wage increase.
Here’s another example. Let’s say we’re teachers. We’re easily instructing 150 students each day. To cover the school’s overhead—expenses like building repair, textbooks, utility bills and the like, 50 percent of our $25 million salary will be deducted. Fair enough because we still get to keep the other half—we’ll take home a $12.5 million salary. Teaching even the orneriest, manners-deprived kid is worth that kind of cash. My $25 million salary, divided by 150 students, will cost parents a mere $166,667 per child. No discounts available for multiple kids. (“Oh…will that be cash or check? Please, spell my name correctly.”) And, sorry, no credit cards accepted.
Think of this. Once all of our salaries are likewise upwardly-adjusted to meet sports celebrity salary standards, we’ll actually have enough money to purchase a ticket to watch Pujols play ball!
And, oh, let’s not forget to bring $250 for the sports celebrity-adjusted price of a Stadium Dog with relish!