Patrick Mahomes, the quarterback of the Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs, will earn $50 million this season as part of his 10-year, $500 million deal with the club.
The average North Carolina teacher will earn $56,000 for a season that begins in early August, too, and runs through next June.
These 1,000-1 differences in pay are hugely unequal. But are they unfair?
Probably not. Pay has nothing to do with virtue and everything to do with scarcity. Quarterbacks who can throw a well-aimed spiral 60 yards while being chased by angry 300-pound men are rare.
Conscientious teachers, devoted guidance counselors, hard-working cafeteria workers? Not as hard to replace as an offensive lineman.
The public willingly pays big bucks to see professional athletes, singers and actors perform.
That same public pays taxes under duress. You won’t go to jail or have your paycheck garnished if you decline your 13-year-old’s demand to see Taylor Swift.
Mr. Mahomes is one of only 32 starting quarterbacks in the National Football League. There are 445 teachers in the Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Public Schools. There are 110 school systems in North Carolina. Those 32 starting quarterbacks could fit in one classroom at Sheep-Harney Elementary School. North Carolina’s 93,665 teachers would more than fill the Carolina Panthers’ Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte.
Network television is throwing $110 billion at the NFL over the next decade because sports is one of the few things the public demands to view live. You won’t see 80,000 people show up to watch the end-of-grade exams at Northeastern High School.
Besides seven television networks, other corporations are giving Mahomes $20 million a year to peddle insurance, submarine sandwiches, mobile phone service and beer. A local school struggled to raise $1,000 for a trip to the state zoo in Asheboro.
Fans are willing to pay $195 for a seat behind the Chiefs at a three-hour August exhibition game versus Detroit. The average Pasquotank County taxpayer reluctantly shells out $847 annually for 180 days of public-school education benefiting 4,500 children.
Pay disparities will get worse.
The Wall Street Journal’s sports department estimated that National Basketball Association players like Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks will be the first pro athletes to earn $100 million annually. That would be more than the $94 million that Michael Jordan earned during his entire career. At 25, Doncic could be the first athlete to earn $1 billion from his sport over a career.
ESPN, NBC and Amazon are prepared to ante up $76 billion for NBA television rights over the next 11 years. North Carolina spent about $17 billion on public education in 2021-22. The players are entitled by contract to 51% of league revenue. Personnel costs consume 79% of the typical public-school budget in North Carolina. Teachers get a big share of a much smaller economic pie than NBA players.
Then there is Elon Musk, whose compensation eclipses the compensation of Mahomes, Doncic and Swift combined.
Tesla shareholders voted a second time in June to pay Musk a $48 billion bonus. Probably they were grateful for the 800% runup in Tesla’s share price since a Delaware judge blocked the bonus in 2018. They expect more large wealth gains in coming years.
What lessons could educators and the rest of us learn from the NFL, the NBA and Elon Musk?
If customers are fleeing, find out why. School attendance statewide was down 0.4% last year, 3.6% since before COVID. One quarter of all students are chronically absent, according to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. Schools are subsidized based on “average daily membership,” or attendance.
NFL rosters include 53 players, so they are paid well, but less than their brethren on the hardcourts who split things just 15 ways. There is only one Elon Musk.
Being perceived as indispensable helps, too.
Most Popular
Comments / 0