Comparing a professional athlete’s salary to the average American, it’s easy to say that they make too much for only playing a sport. After all, a professional athlete makes on average $3.2 million a year while the average American makes only $56 thousand. That means that athletes earn more money than teachers, doctors, and members of the military.

But, it’s important to remember that athletes work under enormous companies and on teams that generate billions of dollars in revenue each year. The NFL, MLB, and NBA all get millions of views each game and can have almost 20,000 people in their arenas who specifically go to watch the players. Without the players, these leagues wouldn’t exist, so it makes perfect sense that there salaries reflect the popularity and huge amounts of business they bring in. In general, players salaries are just a very small portion of all the cash these businesses bring it.

Another thing to consider is that professional athletes are at a high risk to get injured. Their job is to push their body to the limit and they have a lot of pressure to perform well. Whether it is getting the touchdown in football or diving for the ball in baseball, athletes often times put their bodies on the line for the game. In fact, around 15% of all professional athletes end up getting a season or even a career ending injury.

There is a perception of athletes as greedy people whose only concern is for the fastest cars, designer clothing, and outlandish spending but this is not true for all athletes. In reality, a lot of athletes give back to the community. With their large salaries, a lot of athletes make very large donations to different charities. Famous basketball player LeBron James even raised $2.5 million for the Boys and & Girls Clubs of America and David Beckham supports countless programs, most prominently UNICEF, for which he works as an ambassador and helps with the Unite Against AIDS Campaign.

Along with that, even making it to a professional level takes years of hard work and determination. Only around two percent of college athletes end go going to play in professional leagues, according to the NCAA. Even after making it to pros, not all athletes make millions of dollars. Athletes in less popular sports make so much less than even the lowest-paid athletes more popular leagues.

For example, players in the National Women’s Soccer League only make an average of $28,000 a year while lowest paid players in the NBA make $500,000.
It’s also important to consider who would get the money if the athletes made less. If the large amount of revenue isn’t paid to the athletes, it’s likely the billionaire owners of these leagues would pocket the difference.

All this just comes to show that professional athletes make huge amounts of money because millions of people all over the world are happy to watch and pay money to see them perform and make breathtaking plays. If you really believe that they make too much money, perhaps you should stop watching professional sports altogether.