The golf club manufactures know that PGA Tour exposure validates their golf equipment, and apparel. If Tiger wins with Nike, then Nike will benefit globally. And if Phil wins with Callaway Golf, then Callaway Golf wins too. So, professional golfers are NOT overpaid.

Remember when Alan Iverson played for the Philadelphia 76ers, and practice [team practice] was an issue, but he would show up to the games. He was paid millions win or loose…

May professional golfers worldwide earn more!

- Robbie Camacho

Corporate sponsors are “advertising” their goods and giving the money to golfers instead of television or other ad venues. That really has nothing to do with their performance - although it helps to be in the top ten. (see John Daly) Aren’t advertising costs really a chunck … thus the large money going to the athlete?

All other salaries are another story - but all the money that comes in from the VAST audiences must go somewhere…..so CEO’s pay etc should be looked at - as to whether or not they are a “publicly traded” company….the stockholders should benefit, as well as the workers. Now that’s really the “democratic” way, don’t you think? (p.s. I am Republican)

To solve the problem of “take away” pay when the company is losing and the CEO is ousted…..it should take away any severance pay - based on performance!!

2) Point taken - but even so, only two people are as good as Tiger and Phil, for example, whereas there exist many more competent leaders/managers/CEOs. It is not surprising that Tiger and Phil earn a vast income?
Also, it is very easy to assume that the economic system equilibrates perfectly at a level where everybody gets paid what they are worth. Perverse incentives (or seemingly perverse incentives) can lead to ’surprising’ outcomes - sure, nobody ‘benefits’ from Tiger hitting a great shot, but Tiger’s continued hitting of great shots gives screen time to their brand name/logo (i.e. Nike tick on Tiger’s ball on 16th at Augusta some years back), which ingrains the prestige of the brand into the minds of millions of viewers worldwide, recouping their multimillion dollar outlay on Woods several times over.

On a general note, I find it strange that the term ‘overpaid’ is bandied around, as if there was some kind of ‘fair’ level of payment. Perhaps people are simply uncomfortable with the idea that a CEO’s decisions can make or lose billions, or that a logo on Phil’s shirt brings millions more dollars in sales to Callaway? Why, then, should CEOs and golfers not be paid a large share of this? I would propose that, in fact, golfers are not overpaid, but that CEOs are underpaid. The problem that I (and I’m sure many others) ahve with CEO pay is that often, pay systems (with ‘performance’ incentives) are set up in such a way that average, even poor performance is rewarded. If a CEO is responsible for decisions that increase company profits by $100 billion, then why should the CEO not earn billions?

1) I agree that a salary cap won’t change anything as long as big corporations deem it worthwile to give heaps of money to professional golfers. However, these companies also paid big bucks to their top-level management and everybody is going nuts about it…

2) Managers and bankers do something that everybody can do? I definitely don’t agree here. If everybody could do the job, the market would ensure that salaries would be a lot lower, e.g. at the level of construction workers, room maids or office clerks (even though I am not even sure that everybody could do these jobs…).

To me it seems obvious that the economic system determines a person’s earnings, both in sports and business. You could even argue that managers have to be paid a lot more than professional athletes as their responsibility is certainly a lot more important. If Phil Mickelson hits a poor shot, no one else but himself will bear the consequences. If the CEO of a fortune 500 company makes a bad decision in an important matter, thousands of jobs will be impacted.

I feel that the main difference between these two groups and their perception in public is exactly that. Since no one will suffer because of poor performances by well-paid athletes, people are less likely to have a problem with their earnings. For managers, it is obviously different…

As you say, the main targets of public anger have been directed towards managers and bankers, and not top athletes (although, of course, there are always some voices, notably among the ex-pro legion, who do often like to go on about how much more top golfers get paid these days). I think that this is because guys like Tiger and Phil are genuinely world-class golfing talents, doing something that only they can do at their level, whereas there exists a perception (whether rightly or wrongly) that bankers and managers have skills that are replaceable. Is this true?

To an extent, yes. For the most part, bankers etc. just do what everyone else is doing - it’s the easiest thing to do. If everyone does well, everyone is happy. If everyone does badly, then the banker just says to his clients ‘It’s been a bad year, and returns are down across the board’. Obviously, this is a very cynical and smplified view of the business world, but there is an element of truth in it.
It is also certainly the case that CEOs are paid ‘presitge wages’, i.e. they get paid $4 billion not because their input is worth that much, but because it sends out a signal to the markets that they can afford to pay that much, and that if their CEO is the highest paid, they must have the best CEO and the best company. Research shows alarmingly little link between CEO performance and company performance, suggesting that the skills they purport to bring to the table are, in fact, vastly overstated.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts, Big Red.