Maury, while not answering the question at hand, I'm almost surprised that it was not the opposite way around with the two golfers. Rick watches golf. I know a little as far as who's out there playing.

Something about Phil Mickelson made me think he'd be more of an outgoing personality, while Tiger seems so in control, in check of himself, I would have thought he'd be the "leave me alone" type. But what do I know?

BTW if Sergio Garcia shows up, call me. I think he's HAWT!

Many of the athletes are overpaid, it's made the price of admission to baseball parks, hockey games, football games unaffordable for the average American family.

 

Alright, Lainey. Now you've got my attention. I'll have to see who Serigo is to see who you think is HAWT!

 

LOL Patty.

Here he is:


I think the thing I liked about him was that when I first became aware of him as a golfer, he was young and he really, really, looked like he was having fun out there on the golf course. Tiger on the other hand is sooooooooo serious, that he looks like he's about to crack.

I realize a lot of $$$ is on the line when these guys play, but I got a kick out of the young guy who seemed to be enjoying himself.

Hijack, over, Maury.

 

I have no like or dislike of athletes. I think its great for anyone to be able to do something they really love and make a great living at it. Sometimes I think it is sad that Americans are so enamored of "games" and sports that they've made it such a high-paying career for these folks, but to each his own. I've always thought Tiger Woods was an interesting fellow and he just seems to be a nice person, but I'm not particularly a fan. I haven't really figured out what makes people celebrities and why the public is so interested in the private lives of the rich and famous, so I probably am not a good person to respond to this thread, yet here I am pouring out feelings. Oh, well.

 

I don't think I believe that. I think a huge amount of the money athletes get come from either TV deals (Fox paying the NFL billions, for example, for broadcasting rights) or from promotional companies like Nike, Gatorade, etc. I think gate prices and such can most be blamed on greedy owners, not on player salaries. So Tiger makes your Nikes more expensive, but probably doesn't appreciably affect the price of your PGA Tour tickets.

As far as the players being overpaid, maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but at least they DO something for their money. If Tiger didn't get $XX million for showing up, it would probably just go to some TV executive or someone like that; I'd rather see Tiger getting it than the guy who puts Tiger on TV.

 

[QUOTE=Chris Stack,Jun 15 2007, 09:58 AM]I don't think I believe that.

 

And yet, you counted the number of words written in a post

 

My views are that Athletes are no different than any other segment of the population. There are some that are just plain nice people and then there are others who are full of themselves.

As far as what they are paid, this is a free society and they are paid what people are willing to pay. Some spend their money more wisely and others don't.

 

I'm still trying to picture Maury in a gym. Guess he's building muscle for his "NEW" girlfriend.

 

Average baseball ticket prices

Baseball payroll amounts

The highest payroll, the Yankees, have a payroll more than three times that of Arizona, the team with the lowest average ticket price and 23/30 payroll. An average Yankees ticket costs just over twice what an Arizona ticket costs, but you also have to look at the markets they are in; you'd expect a ticket in NY to be a lot higher than one in AZ, just based on demand and cost of living alone. Of course, this begs the question, does NY have a high payroll because they have in-demand seats, or do they have in-demand seats because they have a high payroll? At any rate, Yankee stadium has a capacity of 51,800. Multiply that by their average ticket price of $29, and you get about $1.5mm, or about 1.5x what the Yankees are paying Clemens per start. Figure 80 home games times $1.5mm game, you've got $120mm dollars, about 60% of the Yankees payroll. So maybe ticket prices are slightly affected by player salaries, but we didn't touch upon luxury boxes (around a million for a season) and TV deals (Yankees is worth about $838mm for 10 years) and promotional fees like corporate sponsors, etc.