Thank you for the interesting responses to my question about sports. My thought is based on the intuition that the winner-take-all economy is relatively new. Yes, there are millions of kids that want to grow up to be the next superstar. I had the same dream, but it took me less time to realize how improbable it was. In terms of salaries, my question was in terms of superstar versus the also-rans. In particular I was thinking of the last player on the bench, or better yet, the lowest paid player on the field. Since the number of players is constant, the size of the pool of dreamers is irrelevant. In many some sports, the players have a union, which should actually work to drop the ratio. Also, the owners try to enforce salary caps, we should also drop the ratio. I know someone who played for the 49ers -- Jeff Stover. Actually, another guy who plays basketball occasionally also played for them. Jeff started for the team. He told me that a person he replaced had so little money that he went home to West Virginia to drive a beer truck. I'm guessing that the minimum salary runs around $200,000 and some players get $10 million. I recall the story about Babe Ruth being paid more than the president -- Hoover. The public was shocked, but Ruth said he had a better year. He earned $75,000. Would the substitute players earn less than $1000?
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
