Greg Norman suggests a pay cut for golfers

[URL=http://www.golf.com/golf/tours_news/article/0,28136,1881584,00.html][SIZE=3][COLOR=darkgreen]http://www.golf.com/golf/tours_news/article/0,28136,1881584,00.html[/COLOR][/SIZE][/URL]

Thoughts?

[QUOTE=The 49ers Insider;387181][URL=http://www.golf.com/golf/tours_news/article/0,28136,1881584,00.html][SIZE=3][COLOR=darkgreen]http://www.golf.com/golf/tours_news/article/0,28136,1881584,00.html[/COLOR][/SIZE][/URL]

Thoughts?[/QUOTE]

this is a bad idea.

most of the players out there on the PGA tour are NOT making a ton of money. Golf is a unique professional sport (and better, IMO) because its purely incentive based. if you dont play well, you dont eat. no $200 million A-Fraud salaries where he’s gonna get his money whether he goes 5-5 with 2 homers or 0-5 with 5 K’s.

we get the impression that these golfers are all loaded like phil and tiger and sergio, but in fact, over 200 golfers on the PGA tour are [B]not[/B] exempt for next season and are literally living and supporting their families week by week. even worse than their situations are the golfers on the European Tour (already cut purses) and PGA-Nationwide Tour who have even smaller purses. Without making cuts (only top-70 and ties) you dont get paid…and the person who finishes last above the cut line only makes a couple thousand bucks.

tiger has made ~65Million strictly from playing golf over his career. all his money comes from his endorsements. without wins, its hard to get endorsements. the guys out there just trying to make a living are struggling and i dont think cutting their prize purses would help. .02

I think there is some truth to it. And, quite frankly all professional sports. This has been building for a long time.

I heard on the radio today that the average purse for a PGA tour even Tiger’s first season was around $80 million. This past season, around 12 seasons later, the average purse was around $270 million! What’s that? More than a 300% increase in pay in about a decade.

In general, I’m for free market capitalism. But if their salaries increase by 300% while the general public maybe only increases by say 50% (5% for 10 years), it seems like there has to be some type of ripple effect.

I never understood everyone’s problem with the free market in sports.

If there weren’t fans supporting these athletes they wouldn’t get the money they are earning.

I’ve always found it funny how I am a proponent of free markets in sports, but not in the US haha.

I never understood everyone's problem with the free market in sports.

If there weren’t fans supporting these athletes they wouldn’t get the money they are earning.

I’ve always found it funny how I am a proponent of free markets in sports, but not in the US haha.

I agree that if people are willing to buy the tickets then they can pay whatever salaries they want. Just saying that if their pay is increasing much faster than the pay of the general public, it seems like there would eventually be some backlash.

I know in some circumstances it is already happening. The PGA Tour is losing some corporate sponsors. There’s no way their next TV contract will grow any where close to how much their last contract grew. Hockey is on Versus. Nascar is losing many sponsors and ticket sales. Bobcats never sell out.