Kurt wrote:
>
>Get serious. We are not talking about some sort of government subsidy
>here.
> We are talking about profit-driven companies run by unsentimental
>businessmen. If track has zero paying fans you can be sure that shoe and
>other companies would spend zero dollars on the sport.
>
>Consider the economics of a sport that actually has essentially zero fans,
>let's say Modern Pentathlon or something like that. Do you seriously think
>that the top stars in Modern Pentathlon currently get all the same deals
>and
>dollars that Maurice does?
>
>If there were no paying track fans, you can be certain that Maurice and all
>the others connected with the sport beyond the college level would be
>forced
>to get day jobs.
>
Do you think the several thousand hard core track fans that religiously
attend meets are supporting the payments to the athletes through their (our)
purchases of tickets to domestic competitions ??? If so I have some swamp
land here in California I would love to sell you ... Meet organizers in
Europe gain enough revenue from their turnstiles to support the fees they
pay their athletes .. But there is not a meet in America that is supporting
payments to athletes through the turnstiles .. (and neither do the Europeans
in total) ... Just like in other pro sports like basketball and footbal,
stars get paid big bucks because they have name recognition and people want
to wear what they wear ... And that was the point the Prince was trying to
make ... MO gets the big bucks becasue he is the WR holder and has won 2 WCs
(3 counting the 200)and an Olympic gold) ... Not becasue you or I bought a
single ticket to any competition or sat our butts in the stands .. MO gets
compensated based on his high level of performance ... Period ...
Conway Hill
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
