Sports Fan by Scott Martin

I have been a sports fan for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid I memorized all sorts of statistics about professional athletes. Baseball is my favorite sport so I could easily recite batting averages, home runs, and earned run averages. 

I was a kid in Atlanta when the Braves came to town in 1966. I would listen to baseball games on my transistor radio and keep my own score book. Of course, I knew all of the player names. It was such a treat to go to a game on “Bat Day” and get a free replica baseball bat. 

The Braves were never very good when I was a kid, but I always followed them when my family moved across the country. I remember watching Hank Aaron break Babe Ruth’s home run record in 1974 when we lived in Los Angeles. Ironically, he broke the record against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Hank is the true home run king in my book.

Unfortunately, I am growing increasingly disillusioned with sports including baseball. The player salaries these days are absurd in my opinion. For example, Juan Soto who plays outfield recently signed a 15 year contract with the New York Mets for $765,000,000. This included a $75,000,000 signing bonus, $765,000,000 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $51,000,000.

The argument from professional athletes always used to be that they only had a limited number of years to maximize earnings due to injury risk. Today the average National Football League career is 3.3 years and the average salary in 2024 was $3.2 million.

The 2024 average Major League Baseball and National Basketball Association salaries were $4.66 million and $11.9 million, respectively.

By comparison, the average salary in the U.S. is $63,795. Therefore, a person making this average salary without any raises would earn a little over $1.9 million after 30 years. The average NFL player makes $10,560,000 after 3.3 years.

This “money grab” has been a part of the college athletics landscape as well. In my part of the country, head football coaches in the Southeastern Conference average $8.1 million per year. This amount does not include bonuses or endorsement income.

In 2021, the NCAA passed its first version of NIL (name, image, and likeness) legislation. This allows student-athletes to profit from endorsements and other opportunities. Some student-athletes are making seven figures. I don’t know how I would have handled making seven figures when I was 20 years old.  

The professional and college sports leagues expect the average sports fan to bankroll their exorbitant salaries. It seems that anything to do with sports is a money grab these days. I keep wondering when the fans will finally say enough is enough.

Another problem for many sports fans is that gambling has increasingly become a part of the sports scene since 2018. Not surprisingly, this has led to an all time high of gambling disorder. I lost count of how many commercials for sportsbooks were shown during the recent Super Bowl game. 

It is estimated that “approximately 2.5 million adults in the U.S. are severely addicted to gambling and another 4 to 6 million people have mild to moderate gambling problems.” In October 2024, the Lancet Public Health Commission on gambling made the recommendation to treat gambling as a public health issue similar to alcohol and tobacco. 

It has been well documented that “47% of parents with grown children provide them with some form of financial support.” The average monthly amount of support is $1,384. Sadly, I am confident that in some cases the proliferation of sports betting has added more stress to these family dynamics.