Should all top-level amateur athletes get paid?
Parents invest a ton of money into figure skating, baseball, and piano lessons; OHL players receive a ton of value
By
Mark Schadenberg
I’ve
been watching a debate from the sidelines too long, and feel now is the time to
offer my opinion.
It
takes a rare breed of an athlete to become a regular roster name in the NHL or
to play shortstop for the Blue Jays, middle linebacker for the Eskimos, or a
shooting guard for the Raptors. All sports have their respective roads to the
top defined – the path to success.
If
you want to play on the PGA Tour you (and your parents) shall spend a ton of
money on coaching, greens fees, equipment, travel to tournaments, tournament
entry fees, and certainly sports psychologists and physio therapists, and
tutors to maintain your grades as you will aspire to gain a NCAA scholarship. For
an amateur golfer (not taking cheques or gifts for winning tourneys as prize
money), you will be a speck of sand in the sand trap of life when hoping you
get scouted for the NCAA level, so you must prepare a resume video and circulate
samples to schools from near and far.
If
you want to win an Olympic gold medal in figure skating, the tabulation of
expenses is overwhelmingly astronomical for coaching, ice time, costumes,
travel and certainly even buying the rights to the songs you want to skate to.
If
you want to reach the upper echelons of golf, figure skating, volleyball, auto
racing, badminton, or tennis the years of dedication and desire to your craft
are usually comparable to the number of cheques you must write. You better hope
your rich Aunt Mildred and Uncle Charlie are assisting.
I
would never be able to guess the thousands upon thousands of dollars it
required to have Milos Roanic emerge from Thornhill as Canada’s greatest-ever
male tennis player. I can guarantee you that for every Milos there are 30 or 40
other hopeful tennis players who combined the ‘love’ for their racquet sport
with a 6-love loss to another upcoming star. In turn, that particular upcoming
star likely lost 6-love to Roanic in a youth playdowns competition somewhere in
this province.
Hockey
is no different.
WAGES FOR OHL PLAYERS
I
am quite frankly tired of the discussion about paying players in the Ontario Hockey
League a wage – whether significant or meagre. I won’t refute arguments
presented in the press or agree with sentiments as publicly announced at a
current hearing into possibly issuing minimum wage to OHL players.
I
don’t know exactly how their system works based on teams paying for meals on
the road and supplying equipment and trainers and physio therapists and
nutritional advice and seats in a classroom at a private high school and of
course meals at their billet home. Have you seen the cost of hockey sticks
today?
I
would equally guess that maybe the players do deserve a little more than they
currently receive, but, and this is where many folks forget about the overall
picture of this argument about paying OHL players. How much do we pay today’s OHL
stars when they are still just 17? I’m not talking about today when NHL stars
(the few that make it) have reached the top, I’m referring to their years of
training when they are between the ages of 16 – 19? Do we pay players to attend
dry land training sessions? Do they get paid for all 6 fours they must be at the
rink for a game? Do they get compensated for riding a bus to Sudbury? Is this a
40-hour week or a 20-hour week?
OTHER
SPORTS
Did
we also under-pay sporting endeavours as they hoped and dreamed to climb the
ranks such as Milos Roanic, Adam Hadwin, Brooke Henderson, Tessa Virtue and
Scott Moir, Christopher Mabee, Christine Sinclair, Simeon Jackson, Andrew
Wiggins, Brad Gushue, Rachel Homan (won world championship this past weekend) and Rosie MacLennan? The list does go on forever.
Who
is Brian Yang and should he be getting paid as he climbs the sporting ranking
ladder? Yang is Canada’s top ranked U19 badminton player. Should he be getting
paid minimum wage, or less because he is in a sport which doesn’t attract large
crowds and jersey sales?
I
realize OHL teams play in front of crowds in the average range of 5,000, but
those young players are aspiring to earn $4 million (or more) annual contracts
to play in front of 20,000. If someone needs to point fingers, the sport which
should be analyzed is the contracts offered to Rookie-League baseball players
who are adults who usually also have college diplomas.
As
the world’s best in trampoline, MacLennan has gold medals from many
competitions and a few meagre endorsements, but she would never be considered
rich or professional or someone who has collected pay cheques as a teenager in
trampoline.
Simeon
Jackson is a good story. Who is Simeon Jackson? Currently a member of Canada’s
national men’s team in soccer, Jackson moved from Mississauga when he was 15 to
London to attempt to reach his soccer dreams. He moved to London . . . London
in England to eventually find a pro job as a soccer player. He must be good as he
has earned more than 40 caps for Canada in international play.
Mabee,
who is from Tillsonburg, trained out of Montreal to gradually become one of
Canada’s top figure skaters. Virtue and Moir were based in Michigan for several
years and now they are also in Montreal. When you calculate accommodations with
coaching and ice time, you can understand why tickets to the touring Stars On
Ice can be so high.
It’s
a difficult argument in the OHL, especially when the NCAA system considers the
stars of the Peterborough Petes, Erie Otters and Owen Sound Attack as
professional. (An argument to weigh the pros and cons to on another day). None
of those three centres are large. Neither of those three cities have an overall
fan base which would or could support a team if the price per ticket suddenly
was raised to $30. In the case of Peterborough, the summer passion for lacrosse
often attracts larger crowds than winter OHL contests, therefore it must be
time to pay amateur 18-year-old lacrosse players an attractive salary. Has that
time arrived?
The
cost for an athlete to make it to the NHL begins at the age of 7, and then after
8 or 9 years of expensive AAA hockey only the best of the best ply their trade
in the OHL, and from that group only a very few percentage points will
eventually earn a healthy professional contract someday. Factors are countless,
including staying healthy, but also include size, skating, hockey sense, fortitude
and tenacity. Players like Mitch Marner and Alex Formenton grow several inches
from minor midget until their 19, while others stay small or don’t progress as
quickly. In the OHL, NHL hopefuls receive the best coaching, including skating
coaches, plus trainers, physio, equipment, fitness equipment, and opportunity.
The public relations chief of the Flint Firebirds says their players have
facilities which are second-to-none in the OHL.
I
find it comical that NCAA basketball and football players are not compensated
beyond their schooling as March Madness in hoops is huge business.
Also
curious about why Canada’s national junior baseball team comprised of players
as young as 17 can play the Blue Jays in Dunedin (Live on Sportsnet so it wasn’t
a ‘let’s keep this a secret’ game) and still be considered amateur athletes on
the quest for NCAA scholarships. The opposite doesn’t hold true in hockey as a
player is deemed a pro if they spend more than 48 hours at an OHL camp.
If you can post a golf score near par from the back tee blocks and you're just 18 years old, you will receive free slo-motion video counselling, free physiotherapy, travel costs and entry fees paid to all the tournaments you want to compete in, including Sudbury, Kingston and Niagara Falls. A scratch golfer, who has a chance at a PGA Tour card someday, should receive free over-night accommodations, free lessons, free greens fees and a brand new set of clubs. (lol)
I
don’t believe any sports system is perfect. Improvements can certainly be made
in some areas to assist the athlete, but the rewards (stipends) of an OHL far
exceed that of any other 19-year-old athlete.
ARTS
& ENTERTAINMENT
When
you leave the world of athletics and peak into the arts, children growing up aspiring
to be actors, dancers, singers and musicians must have a wallet brimming with
cash to hit the Top 40 music charts or to star on CSI. The odds of your band
having a hit radio song and tons of ITunes downloads is likely much lower than someday
skating in the NHL. However, all those piano lessons and voice training – sing
from your diaphragm – cost a lot of money, so we should start paying talented
performers minimum wage after their 16th birthday?
LINKS:
Mark Schadenberg, Sales
Representative
Senior Real Estate Specialist
(SRES designation)
Royal LePage Triland Realty
Independently Owned & Operated, Brokerage
