Do you think that sports stars should get such large amounts of money? like Tiger Woods,Ronaldo and Raikkenon?

[Alcatraz]

How much do you think they "should" get paid? What system would you use to determine how much sports stars get paid?

The system that we currently have works a little bit like this.

The events that these guys are in get watched by hundreds of millions of people around the world. Advertisers and sponsors take advantage of this by bidding for time on TV to show the event to these hundreds of millions of people. The sports people who win - by being the best in the world {not just their local neighbourhood, or their state, but the entire world} - get a reasonable percentage of this money in the form of prizemoney.

So, which part of that process would you change? Ban the advertisers from taking advantage of the opportunity to publicise their products perhaps? Ban the TV stations from showing the events? Force the players to play for nothing and let the TV stations or sports organising bodies keep all the advertising revenue?

Some of these actions have been tried. Back in the 1960's, tennis players who were professional were not allowed to play at Wimbledon, the US Open, etc. Who won out of that? The spectators - no, they just were robbed of seeing the best in the world. The players - no, they were robbed of the opportunity to compete against all comers and prove their worth. Advertisers - no, they were indifferent. Sporting bodies - no, because although they got all the revenue, they were running sub-standard events because the best players weren't available.

OK, so what system would you put in place?

And once you do that, why stop at sports. Why not have someone like yourself deciding the amount that everyone in the world gets paid? Oh, that's been tried, too. It's called communist Russia. It sucks and that system collapsed.

No, the best way is to allow the market to pay a market price, but have appropriate taxation laws to ensure that those who are paid the most contribute their fair share back to society.

I also have a more positive argument. I've got no problems - none at all - with people who put in the effort to hone their talents to the standard that the sort of names you've mentioned have done being very well rewarded financially for it. They aren't just decent players of their sport, they are the best in the world. The top performers of the millions of people who participate. We admire their skills, we pay money to watch them. Why shouldn't they get some of that.

Finally, anticipating a common objection about perceived social contribution that makes some people argue that teachers and nurses deserve to get better paid, keep in mind that the sum total of ALL teachers and ALL nurses in the world ARE paid in aggregate a lot, lot more than sports stars are in total. A couple of hundred sports people getting $10 million a year is nothing compared with hundreds of thousands of teachers, nurses, etc getting $50,000 a year or whatever it is {I haven't done this analysis with exact data, but you get the picture}. So, society as a whole DOES value teachers and nurses more highly than sports stars - that's why we employ so many of them.

I could say more, but I think I've made my point.