Look up Ronald Reagan’s administration.
lol
Was gonna say “IDK, but I am willing to bet it was during Reagan’s presidency” and this is the first comment I see.
Why athletes? People attack athletes all the time and ignore that the team owners make $ with a B instead of an M. CEOs do far less for their organization than athletes and make far more money.
I don’t know about athletes, but for us normies, it was the 1980’s with Reaganomics, early recession, rising inequality, “greed is good” culture, heightened Cold War tensions, the emergence of the AIDS crisis, and societal shifts towards consumerism. The 80’s was also a time of technological boom with computers, MTV, and cultural dynamism, with critiques often focusing on increased individualism, materialism, and social challenges.
I think the seeds may have been planted with the radio. Once athletes became celebrities it was only a matter of time. I know little about baseball, but even I know who Babe Ruth was, who played into the 1930s. TV blowing up in the 40s added an additional layer of connecting the names to the faces. This eventually gave way for MTV to come into the mix creating the beginnings of modern pop culture.
I’m not sure why OP or other comments are so hung up on the Athlete part? One of the most famous and wealthiest athletes of all time was a Roman charioteer. Gaius Appuleius Diocles was a celebrity across empires and predated doctors, Jesus and the radio. The only people that got paid more than Gaius were landowners/lords, which is still true to this day.
If I had to guess, “athletes” was the first thing that popped into their head. But I have to assume they mean people who don’t “arguably” contribute to furthering of humanity. So Actors, musicians, athletes vs doctors, teachers, scientists, etc.
A lot of jackass answers in here but this is the answer to the spirit of the question.
Reaganomics or it’s other name “trickle down” economics is what you want to start looking into.
Is there a point you can find in history where we paid doctors, teachers, and nurses close to what they’re worth and more than professional athletes?
It sounds like you’re nostalgic for a time that never existed.
There was definitely a time when professional athlete was hardly a career, and certainly not well paid. So for a time teachers and healthcare workers got paid more than athletes.
In the CFL (Canadian Football League) the players don’t make more than $100,000/yr generally, and the good ones get scooped up to the NFL.
I don’t think doctors fit in that group. They are paid well, and respected, far more than nurses on both accounts.
Going back in history, a doctor/surgeon/dentist and barber were the same. At some point a doctor became elevated to something more than meat technician. Probably the English during the Enlightenment with their different scientific clubs that helped distinguish doctors.
Yea, but that doesn’t fit OP’s childlike view of the world so shut up, nerd!
What “childlike view”? Do you remember which jobs were considered “essential” during COVID-19 or were you too young?
I sure do. Of course doctors and nurses were essential because it was a health crisis. But it was grocery store workers, Starbucks baristas, Amazon warehouse workers because people are idiots and think stuff like that mattered. I remember sports teams and reality TV contestants being put in quarantine so they could safely compete. I remember it wasn’t teachers, as classes were canceled before going online only for about a year and a half.
So what’s your point?
Where I live, we’ve been treating…
- Nurses very poorly. Underpaying and overworking them, while not training enough new ones.
- Family Doctors (aka. GPs) very poorly by removing the kinds of services they’re allowed to provide, increasing expenses without increasing compensation, and again, not training enough new ones.
Doctors are paid well, but they also have incredibly high expenses (and often high student debt, too).
This is just capitalism, isn’t it?
Athletes and entertainers that make millions do so because people pay for it in large numbers. This is what capitalism wants and does.
I agree with your sentiment but I think you’re just critiquing capitalism. If I had my way these people would be taxed up the wazoo. No baseball player or Hollywood actor should ever be worth 10s of millions, let alone hundreds, or billions.
I think some of this is related to radio, tv and internet too. Before radio few people could follow a game live so the audience, or at least live emotional audience, is a lot smaller and that’s pretty aligned to profit. Or put another way, if every Messi or Taylor Swift fan gave 50c every year they’d be filthy rich but that was harder to acheive before radio with things being more localised.
A friend shared this a month or so ago and I haven’t been able to check how accurate it is but apparently its soccer player wages in 1999:
That was a lot of money at the time, but even adjusting for inflation it really doesn’t seem to be the fuckoff money they get now
You mean the social sector being chronically underpaid with no improvement in sight? I blame less and less regulated lobbyism, a.k.a. legal corruption. Because the social sector doesn’t have one, usually. It would often amount to the government bribing itself. What, politicians making good decisions without looking out for a payday, you say?
Complaining about athletes just makes it sound petty. Athletes are just employees, if you’re going to complain, complain about the athletes’ and nurses’ employers. Rich people never gave a flying fuck about their employees, and underfunded schools are a feature for them, too.
And the overwhelming majority of athletes do not earn well. It’s only the top 1% that gets rich, and only those in sports with a lot of public appeal.
Baseball players went on strike in 1972. They’d had a ‘union’ since the 1800s, but always bowed to the owners.
I always hate when this argument is used when were talking about celebrities here. As if a famous athlete or a famous musicians relation to labour and the benefits of that labour is at all comparable to say a coal miner’s relationship with capital.
Complaining about athletes just makes it sound petty.
And your opening statement makes your entire post sound completely out of touch.
I understand the skepticism on society’s priorities.
Athletes are literally 1-in-a-million individuals. They bring in crazy amounts of money from people who want to watch them play.
The real problem is that there are so many people who are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to watch a sports game, but not willing to see teachers properly compensates (in my opinion). Because athletes getting a big share of the pie that they’re bringing in sounds fair to me. The question is why people have that much pie to give them, and not as much pie to give to schools.
False dichotomy. First not all athletes are paid « astronomically ». That’s only a particular subset and in very particular exposures. The reason they makes millions is because they makes billions for the team’s owner. Now this owners use their billions to ensure that the world continues that way.
Second athletes have normally a really really short career vs. Doctor. They mortgage their bodies (and their mental sanity) in a 10 years period and are unable to work very well after that if your salary don’t represent that their no point in doing it and the owner will not make money.
All in all. Athletes are workers (with some benefit) like us and should be seen as such. The real grinch are the owners
I believe the standard singularity was in 1971. At least, according to wtfhappenedin1971.com
Bread and Circuses, nothing else for the filthy plebs.
Always leaving the mechanics out lol. My career is always under looked but yet everyone comes crawling in when their car doesn’t work haha
November 6th 1988
Nothing special about they day really. It’s just happened to be the day when the Legrand Poumpaugh themselves decreed as such. Glory be their nostrals.
