Very few people get to make a living as an athlete, and strangely enough it is very costly to aspire to be one as well. That is what Johnny Manziel learned recently as he was penalized by the NCAA for "inadvertently" breaking one of their rules from uncountable list of idiocy.
I'm not sure what is more absurd, that he was penalized, or that is was only for the first half of a game. But the penalty itself is very indicative of why the system of amateur athletics in the US is so messed up, specifically under the rule of the NCAA. Even though this doesn't have much relevance to beach volleyball as it was recently just anointed as college sport for women, it has become such a hot button issue that I can't help but shed some more perspective on it.
Before I go any further, you should definitely check out Patrick Hruby's article on this matter and the Jonathon Benjamin story on which the article is centralized on. I'll try to not reiterate too many things that he has already said because he pretty much hit the nail on the head with that one, but I think there is a bigger component of exploitation that doesn't get much talk.
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Alex Rodriguez has grossed over 324 million dollars in his career...yea...just let that sink in a little.
Regardless of how much we yell at our TV's in passion, sports may be a lifestyle or a culture to us fans and players, but at the end of the day it a business, and it is only one of many within the entertainment industry that compete against one another for our eyes and ears to exclusively give out attention and money to them.
The athletes then are not providing a service or delivering a product, they are the business itself but they don't get to profit off it unless the company that employs them profits. But in the world of beach volleyball, the companies like the AVP, NVL, and FIVB don't thrive unless the players do as well.
The other side of the business is advertisement, sponsors, and endorsement deals. This is what fuels the prize money (because ticket prices and merchandise are virtually out of the equation), and to attract more lucrative and lure more companies, those same partners need more of a reason and incentive to invest knowing that their brand will get proper exposure. The only place they can get that is through the sport and the athletes themselves.
So you should see that when the pros are able to make themselves more viable as assets, that can make appearances, be heard and seen as athletes, that have the ability to promote products and services, then tours will have money being thrown at them. But if I were a potential client, I wouldn't want to endorse a tour that has the majority of its athletes waiting tables, working odd jobs, or even worse, working for a competing company. What kind of exposure is that? You gotta spend money to make money, but let's leave the spending to the tours and not the players.
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