In my opinion, nearly all the professional sports players are paid way more than their true worth, especially the elite in every sport.
For example, how can any player be worth over a million dollars for a week of tennis at the Australian Open, woman or man?
That's more than any surgeon, prime minister or any other professional would earn in a similar time frame.
Through no fault of their own, the sportsman/woman is paid these vast sums to play at what is no more than a game, that was once played solely for the enjoyment of it.
Only in modern times, and solely due to the big companies wishing to exploit the average man's dollar, do the sportsmen of today get paid such large sums.
By advertising, the companies push their products at the public, and the bigger they can make the sportsman the bigger their profile, and hence their profits.
The companies have got greedy and the sportsmen/women have wooed themselves into a false belief that they are worth these large amounts of money.
If the franchise holders and companies that own the teams or athletes are in serious financial trouble, then bad luck to them. They brought it on themselves. They have bled us dry over the last 20 years or so.
- Max Flaws
I can't believe you did not include, in your top five problems facing professional sport, the issue of alienation of the public with their home team.
I believe you cannot expect loyal, heartfelt support of a team that has so few locals.
Buying in top sportsmen may be a necessity for a low population area like the south of the South Island, but ultimately the premise is wrong and will fail if there are not enough (a) bums on seats and (b) financial support from the locals.
Rugby and netball are more than casual television entertainment; they require an attachment by the public for support to be ongoing, otherwise they may as well watch Fear Factor or any one of the other slapstick game shows.
Maybe it is a lose-lose situation for the southerners but there is no way it can be externally propped up continuously by the national union. Provincial rugby has to return to, at best, semi-amateur.
- Alan Whitaker
It has become increasingly apparent that New Zealand does not have the population base to support professional rugby continually, let alone basketball, netball, league, football, cricket and many other sports which require funding from various sources to survive.
Most rely heavily on sponsorship. In Otago rugby's case we were going to scrape through when the team had a good season and crowds came through the gates (the same applies to the Highlanders), but in indifferent seasons we have seen the results.
It has been heartbreaking to watch in the professional age many long-term volunteers turned away from all sports and not even asked for opinion or advice from the new "professional" appointees.
In many cases, these people had little practical experience of the game and, of course, mistakes have been made. The quality of these "professionals" may and hopefully should improve in time.
It used to be said that if New Zealand was to compete on the world stage, provincial competition must be strong.
This seems no longer necessary as New Zealand squads in most sports represent their provinces only occasionally, and this drifts on down to club level, where the standard has become very average, because of the complete absence of representative players.
In rugby's case, the game is professional globally, and for the All Blacks to continue to be a force the Super 15 competition is needed to generate funds to pay the players. New Zealand rugby would collapse without it and many more players would head overseas.
Other sports will just have to run a lean machine and hope that sometime, in the seasons ahead, things improve.
- Warwick Larkins
