Sunday, August 30, 2009

How Long Does A Top Athlete Work For $100,000?

According to the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, it takes an average U.S. citizen a shade under four years to earn $100,000. Alex Rodriguez does it in six pitches.

Ben Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers may have him beat. If you include his signing bonus, Mr. Roethlisberger brought in 100 grand for every 3.6 snaps he took in 2008 (many of which were hand-offs). But at least he helped his team win a Super Bowl. Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James played 3,054 minutes in the 2008-09 regular season and made $100,000 every time he passed the 21.2 mark.

Read more.

Originally posted at Carpe Diem.

10 Comments:

At 8/30/2009 11:22 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, but at least they're not running some evil multi-national corporation, employing thousands of people and contributing to the worlds wealth, so it's alright.

 
At 8/30/2009 12:09 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Shouldn't you consider the long, hard hours spent in training?

 
At 8/30/2009 12:18 PM, Anonymous Matt R said...

This is total bunk. Do you think showing up at practice every day is optional for professional athletes?

 
At 8/30/2009 2:25 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"This is total bunk. Do you think showing up at practice every day is optional for professional athletes?"...

Well its not total bunk Matt R but I get your point...

Its the pitches/time played in the game that actually count, right?

Still there's lots and lots of practice and then there's travel time and so forth...

I wonder what the hourly rate would work out to be considering all the hours these players are actually away from home?

Now that might be an interesting number...

 
At 8/30/2009 2:49 PM, Blogger KO said...

To be comparable, I do think you have to add their other required time like training.

Out of that 4 years for an average person, how much is actually directly valuable to the employer? Certainly nowhere near 100%.

But these figures don't seem to include endorsements, otherwise Tiger Wood's figures would be much higher. By the article's measure, those take zero time to earn so should be added in.

 
At 8/30/2009 4:51 PM, Anonymous Matt R said...

I test software for a living. What "actually counts" is finding bugs in the software I test before it goes live. I could work out how much I get paid per bug, and it would sound ridiculous. But it would also be a meaningless number, because it wouldn't take into account the hours of reading specification documents, writing test cases, review meetings, etc.

With Roethlisberger, why count snaps? It's not hard to make athlete's pay sound crazy, but since that's obviously what they were going for, why not go all the way and figure out how much he got paid per completion? Or per touchdown? Per win?

 
At 8/30/2009 5:28 PM, Blogger KauaiMark said...

In contrast, a substitute teacher making $120/day working every day of a 180 day school year, it would take 4.62yrs

(...in reality, about twice that since we don't get assignments every day)

 
At 8/30/2009 8:00 PM, Blogger B D Humbert said...

How many minutes on stage does it take for Kenny Chesney to earn $100k - how many minutes on air for Katie Couric? Or Rush Limbaugh?

 
At 8/31/2009 10:38 AM, Blogger Andy said...

Eh, they had to go through a long period of earning nothing, with only a small probability of improving that. Minor league baseball players earn $1,100/month for their first season. And a season is only 4-5 months long.

 
At 8/31/2009 11:53 AM, Blogger Michael said...

Wait, is it just me or does the 4yrs to earn $100,000 seem wrong? So the average person makes 25k+ per year? I thought it was closer to 40k?

 

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