Quote:
Originally Posted by albionmoonlight
Russell also provides another example of how we measure success for athletes so differently than any other walk-of-life.
If your college roommate had invented some social networking program in his dorm room and got paid $20 million dollars by Google after graduating to come work for them and develop his product and then spent the next three years coasting until Google decided to let him go, you would consider him a success.
There might be some sense of lost potential there. But the story would generally go "Did you hear about that guy who invented SuperTwitter? He got, like, $20 million dollars for it from Google and now he just hangs out on the beach all day and drinks beer. That's awesome."
Not a new point, but athletics is one of the only areas where a guy can become a multi-millionaire doing what he loves and be considered a "failure."
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But your roommate actually developed/invented something that has a recognizable value to a company. Like Troy said, athletes are being paid entirely based on the potential they can bring. And the most fucked up part about it is that, especially in the case of #1 pick QBs, they are being paid either more than, or at the same level as, QBs who have already proven themselves on the field, won Super Bowls, etc.