Professional sports
Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations or teams can command large incomes.
[1] As a result, more sportspeople can afford to make sport their primary career, devoting the training time necessary to increase skills, physical condition, and experience to modern levels of achievement.
[citation needed] Regional leagues in Chicago, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York had coalesced in the 1900s and 1910s, most of which gave way to the American Professional Football Association in 1920.
The first game involving an APFA team took place on 26 September 1920, at Douglas Park in Rock Island, Illinois, as the hometown Independents flattened the St. Paul Ideals 48–0.
The first head-to-head battles in the league occurred one week later as Dayton topped Columbus 14-0 and Rock Island pasted Muncie 45–0.
Money was so tight that George Halas carried equipment, wrote press releases, sold tickets, taped ankles, played and coached for the Decatur club.
With no established guidelines, the number of games played—and the quality of opponents scheduled—by APFA teams varied, and the league did not maintain official standings.
According to Robert W. Peterson's book "Pigskin: The Early Years of Pro Football," APFA games averaged crowds of 4,241.
While players were not given diamond-encrusted rings, they did receive golden fobs in the shape of a football inscribed with the words "World Champions."
Ten APFA players along with Carr are enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, set up in 1963 not far from the Canton automobile dealership that gave birth to the NFL in 1920.
As college football heavily restricted the rights of its teams to broadcast games (a policy eventually ruled to be illegal in 1984), the NFL instead allowed games to be televised nationwide, except in a team's home city; the restriction was softened in the early 1970s, by which point the NFL had secured broadcast deals with all of the major television networks, another major factor in the inability of any competing league to gain traction since then.
This arrangement still holds today, although the leagues are now subdivided and pennants are decided in post-season playoff series between the winners of each division.
[4] Baseball became popular in the 1920s, when Babe Ruth led the New York Yankees to several World Series titles and became a national hero on the strength of his home runs (balls that cannot be played because they have been hit out of the field).
NPB is considered to be the highest caliber of baseball outside the U.S. major leagues, and the best Japanese players often emigrate to the U.S. by way of the posting system.
Amid pressure from television networks that were threatening to offer the WHL a contract, the NHL doubled in size in 1967, beginning a period of expansion that lasted through much of the 1970s.
In Europe, the introduction of professionalism varied widely, and the highest-caliber league on the continent, the Soviet Championship League (proven to be at least equal to or better than the NHL in the 1970s), was officially populated with ostensibly amateur players who were actually full-time sportspeople hired as regular workers of a company (aircraft industry, food workers, tractor industry) or organization (KGB, Red Army, Soviet Air Force) that sponsored what would be presented as an after-hours social sports society hockey team for their workers.
Other European countries including Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, and Austria have prominent professional leagues.
"[13] Professional sportsmen can earn a great deal of money at the highest levels; for instance, in 2024 the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team is set to pay 70 million dollars to its highest-paid player, Shohei Ohtani.
[14] Per Forbes 2021 ranking, the highest-paid athletes include Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Naomi Osaka, Tiger Woods, Serena Williams and wrestler-turned-actor The Rock.
[citation needed] Much of the growth in income for sports and athletes has come from broadcasting rights; for example, the most recent television contract for the NFL is valued at nearly US$5 billion per year.
[15] Women tend to earn considerably less than men in such sports as basketball, golf, football (soccer), softball and baseball.
According to Cheryl Cooky's TEDx talk, a professor in American studies, gender, and sexuality at Purdue University, the marginalization of female athletes in mainstream sports media and sponsorship opportunities is nothing new.
According to Cooky, female athletes need more visibility to ensure their access to necessary resources and financial security, which has an impact on their professional development.
[19] Outside the highest leagues, however, the money professional athletes can earn drops dramatically, as fan bases are generally smaller and there are no television revenues.
Many professional athletes experience financial difficulties soon after retiring, due to a combination of bad investments, careless spending, and a lack of non-athletic skills.
[25] The highest-paid player for the 2011–2012 Russian Premier League season was Samuel Eto'o of Anzhi Makhachkala, who at the end of the 2011–12 season was expected to receive a total salary of RUB 900.2 million (£35.7 million) after income tax, making Eto'o the second highest-earning athlete in the world and the highest-paid footballer in the world followed by Lionel Messi and Zlatan Ibrahimović.
[29] The highest-paid player for the 2010–11 Bundesliga season was Franck Ribéry of Bayern Munich who received a salary of €6.3 million after income tax.
[35][36] Premier League salaries have boomed in more recent years thanks to massive television deals and wealthy new investors in clubs.
[35] The highest salary in Major League Soccer in 2019 was the $14 million paid to former Swedish international Zlatan Ibrahimović, who played for the LA Galaxy in that season.
[38] Ibrahimović was signed to his 2019 contract under MLS' Designated Player Rule, which was instituted in 2007 for the express purpose of attracting international stars.
