Did you know that the Holland Bloorview hospital, the largest hospital in Canada, has an operating budget of 77,452,049? Seems like a lot right? Well, what would you think about if I told you that the highest paid athlete, one person, could pay for Canada's largest hospital that has a therapy pool, resource center, neuromotor, neuromuscular department, Psychopharmacology department, Therapeutic Recreation, Cleft Lip, Palate and Craniofacial department, Spinal Cord department, Brain injury rehabilitation team, specialized Orthopedic and Development Rehab lab, Therapeutic playroom, Bloorview research institute, Communication and Writing aids, Prosthetic and Ortho services, and a teaching and learning center seven and a half times over in one year. All of those programs, plus multiple OR’s, MRI machines, and other scanning and X-ray machines all in one hospital could be paid for seven times over by one person each year. Floyd Mayweather, the highest paid professional wrestler, makes 505,000,000 dollars a year, seven times more than the biggest hospital in Canada’s budget. So, should these athletes be paid so much? What does it say about Canada’s priorities? This is getting out of control.

Now, before you start blowing your top about the heavy workload of being a professional athlete, let me lay down some facts. Floyd Mayweather makes 505,000,000 dollars a year, so let’s do the math. If he worked every hour of the year, he’d be making 56,716.10 dollars an hour and 9,528,301.89 dollars a week. Now, let’s compare that to a doctor. A family physician makes 145,170 dollars a year. If he or she worked every hour of the year, he or she would be making 16.30 dollars an hour and 2,739.06 dollars a week. 2,739.06 compared to 9,528,301.89? Not even fair. A doctor, someone who saves lives, is making 28 times less in a week than an athlete makes in an hour. That is ridiculous! We are saying, that we value our sports over patients lives. A doctor saves lives. That is priceless. Are you telling me that someone who throws around a ball is valued more than someone who saves lives? It’s time we get our priorities straight.

Some could argue that an Athlete affects the millions of people that watch the game while other professions affect so little people, but I’d have to disagree. You see, I’d like to play the ‘quality over quantity card’. Sure, watching the game is fun. You get to hang out with buddies, light up the barbeque, and enjoy yourselves. But it’s something that has migrated into something as simple as picking up the mail every monday morning. Now, imagine a doctor handing you your newborn baby, or telling you that they just saved your mother’s life. Your cancer has been defeated and your hernia has been repaired. That infected appendix? Gone before it could cause any harm. That’s the kind of news that doctors deliver. It’s life changing. So, would you rather spend your money finding a cure to Alzheimer's, or support one person who plays a game. Give someone a mansion, or give thousands of people their loved ones back? There are so many better ways to spend this money, yet we choose to give people lamborghinis and diamond earrings. It just doesn’t make sense to me, and it shouldn’t make sense to you.

Without a doubt, people who go through all that expensive schooling, deserve to make more for their effort. We hear about it all the time, how professional athletes didn’t complete secondary schooling, or spend thousands of dollars on a diploma. Yet, they make more money than most of the people who did. What? Nurses, Teachers, Doctors, Interior Designers, Engineers, Farmers with Agricultural degrees. They all spent the time, effort, and money on a degree- so why don’t athletes? If they make so much money, don’t have to pay for a degree, and get to skip ALL that schooling, why ARE they paid so much? I’m having a hard time seeing the light on this subject.
Another point that has been raised in favour of the millions is that professional athletes are more likely to become injured on the field. Are those injuries worth millions of dollars? Let's find out. In the National Defense and Canadian forces the Naval officer is paid the highest salary. On average, a naval officer is paid $100,732 a year. So, let's do the math and break it down into hours yet again. If an officer worked every hour of the year, he would make $11.53 an hour and $1,937.15 a week. A naval officer in the army, who is putting his life on the line is making 4,919 times less than a professional athlete who risks non life threatening injuries. Again, a broken nose, or a life. I’d have a hard time siding with the broken nose.

So, Should professional athletes make millions of dollars for playing the world's sports? Broadcasting to millions of adoring fans. Or can that money go towards something else? Something more than just one person? Know what I say? Yes. Because it can. We have so many problems that don’t have a solution, this specific problem? Totally does. In fact, all that money can go towards exploring our planet, exploring other planets. Maybe we could finally put an end to all this pollution, or find some way to genetically recreate endangered or extinct species. We could finally find that cure to cancer or increase the human lifespan. With the kind of funding that professional athletes are receiving, we could learn, and do, so much more. So, why aren’t we making all these advances? Because athletes are still getting paid ridiculous amounts of money. Little by little, we can change where all our money is headed, stop overpaying professional athletes, and make real change in our world. What are you waiting for?