I'm kind of sorry that I brought this up by making that offhand comment earlier. I don't have anything against artists, sports figures, etc. raking it in. The money is there, why shouldn't they get a piece of the action. My wife is an artist and I think artists should make a lot more than they do. My original comment was only to bemoan the fact that our culture seems to value things inappropriately, but there's no big spreadsheet in the sky with all the correct formulas in it.
Don't regret it, it's an interesting discussion compared to some of the bullshit posted on this thread. In any case, I don't see why paying millions to sports figures is an inappropriate value, because I think "inappropriate" would basically apply to cheating or criminal activity. The Trump family tax cheating, for example, on which Trump's fortune is based. Totally inappropriate, and probably criminal, although the statute of limitations has run out on the criminal side. A great athlete, on the other hand, has probably spent thousands of hours honing his talent, to do that one thing, and people will pay money to see him do it. Fine with me, nobody is holding a gun to the ticket-buyers' head, and I don't spend more than about two hours a year watching sports and if pressed, couldn't name a single current baseball player. The only reason I know who Steph Curry is, I was watching a TV in a sidewalk Indian restaurant in LA and the sportscasters kept talking about "Curry," and I thought, "Hey, I'm eating some, and it's quite good." As far as artists are concerned, I think most of them make about what their art's worth, until you get fairly high up, when it becomes a con game used to separate philistines from their ill-gotten gains, which seems mildly funny to me, but not totally inappropriate. Besides, if Alan knows what he's talking about, and I'm uncertain about that, all that cash is going to turn into toilet paper anyway. God knows we need the toilet paper.