Money and economic power exert significant influence on the goals, purpose, and organization of a sports in society(Bairner, 2007; Gruneau, 1999; Sugden and Tomlinson, 2000; Tomlinson, 2007). This explains why professional organizations are willing to pay athletes such as Alex Rodriguez with his 225million dollar deal signed in 2007. The average American salary is 44,389 while the average professional athlete's salary is 1,470,000 (Rummel, 2009) . Normal Americans that do not make it professional can dip into the illegal gambling market that averages about 380 billion dollars a year. Mass Media can be directly related to these monstrous contracts. Athletes' rely on fans to watch games and purchase merchandise. The normal Americans are part responsible in helping pay these athletes.
Sport represents the fourth largest industry in the U.S. while also just missing the top 10 and being the 11th largest industry in the world. The sporting industry is responsible for $213 billion dollars, college sports alone account for four billion. Gambling also has a huge impact on sport; legal gambling reels in $2.4 billion and illegal gambling brings in $380 billion as shown up above. Another big money deal that took place in the world of sports is CBS signing a six-billion dollar contract with the NCAA (a non profit organization). Money and sport have been going hand in hand, with many institutions recently getting in trouble for illegal recruiting and funding amateur/college athletes with money and goods. High schools have also felt the affects of making money with sport. Such as, naming stadiums, arenas, and fields on behalf of companies that will sponsor and pay for the naming rights.
These staggering numbers in sports will continue to rise as the interest in sport and athletes remain high. Sport take up most of Americans leisure, reading, and conversation time and are a get away for 'normal Americans' wanting to escape the stress within their everyday lives.
Bairner, Alan. 2007. Back to basics: Class, social theory, and sport. Sociology of Sport Journal 24, 1: 20-36
Gruneau, Richard. 1999. Class, sports, and social development. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
Sugden, John, and Alan Tomlinson. 2000. Theorizing sport, social class, and status. In Jay Coakley and Eric Dunning, eds., Handbook of sport studies(pp.309-321). London: Sage.
Tomlinson, Alan. 2007. Sport and social class. In George Ritzer, ed., Encyclopedia of sociology(pp.4695-4699). London/New York: Blackwell.
Rummel, T. (2009). Money in sports:what's right, what's wrong, and who should foot the bill. Bleacher Report, Retrieved from http://bleacherreport.com/articles/231148-money-in-sports-whats-right-whats-wrong-and-whos-to-blame
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