Negative Impacts of Large Salaries of Professional Athletes Essay

Negative Impacts of Large Salaries of Professional Athletes - Essay Example The large salary paid to athletes has been a controversial issue since time immemorial. Olympic gold winners such as Usain Bolt and Mike Tyson have topped the table of some of the highest paid athletes in the histories of their respective sports. Athletes make as much as thirty million dollars in a single sports event while a professional doctor in the united states may earn an average salary of slightly over $500,000 a year. The disparity is large a feature that makes athletes live a particular type of life that has consequently defamed both themselves and their respective sports. Among the living examples of poor management of the large salaries, including the life of the professional boxer Mike Tyson and several other athletes in Africa who have lived recklessly thereby losing either their lives or limbs thereby missing the sports (Mottram, 2005). Among the reasons that lead to a poor reputation, the large salaries have earned to both the sports and the athletes include the motivation arising from the large salaries. The athletes have therefore resorted to doing anything possible to win the medals in order to earn the large salaries. As explained earlier, the large salaries are often both a motivation and a reward for the strenuous exercises the athletes undergo during their sports. However, the fame and the millions of dollars have affected the lives of the athletes negatively thereby tarnishing the reputation of the sports. Doping, for example, is a contentious issue in athletes with the sports organizers calling back and banning many athletes who have won their trophies unscrupulously (Santo & Mildner, 2010).