Thursday 14 April 2011

500 Word Speech On The Salaries Of Professional Athletes

This is a short 500 word speech on the Salaries of professional athletes for an assignment.




Do professional athletes get paid too much? How much is too much. More than their clubs will pay them or more than the public deem necessary.

The answer is more than their clubs will pay them, therefore professional athletes do not get paid too much. The average yearly wage of a Premier League footballer is £1,761,136. If the chairmen of all the 20 clubs thought that figure was too much then it would be lower, as the players do not put forward the contract offers.
A common argument that will continue in this country is; should soldiers get paid more than footballers? Whether they should or not is not the point, it is the fact that the government pays the soldiers not Russian billionaires like Chelsea chairman Roman Abramovich who can afford to pay his players large amounts. The average salary of a newly qualified soldier is £14,300 and they take their job knowing what the salary is and also the danger that is involved.

It is not only Premier League footballs that receive high salaries 2 two reigning NBA MVP LeBron James will earn $14,500,000 this year, that is the equivalent to £8,904,446. He is good enough to receive a high wage and the Miami Heat General Manager decided to offer him that amount, would you turn it down? The answer to that question is no, nobody would. James is working in his dream job that he chose to work in and is receiving his wage, no matter how large it is.

Professional athletes are not paid a lot of money just so their teams can secure their services, they are also advertising icons. Wayne Rooney received £600,000 a year from Coke Zero to be the face of their product. Tiger Woods received $90,000,000 a year back in 1999. Again the fact that neither Rooney nor Woods would have asked for this amount and still received it shows how companies as big a Coke and Nike can pay stars that much and still rake in profits.

Everybody in a capitalist society gets paid depending on their value and services in the so called market place. If sport and football is the number one spectator sport in our country then the players will keep on receiving these kinds of wages, because the clubs owners will be receiving money from gate receipts, merchandise and other such oddities.

The argument that sports players receive too much money is completely powerless and will never affect how much they receive in the future. It is only because professional athletes receive much more than the average wage that people argue against it and think they are looking out for the wider public. If soldiers were to receive the same amount as athletes people would then complain about that. Do not say you wouldn’t, people’s thirst for money will overtake any of their morals so Soldiers would receive the same amount of slander as athletes do now. Surely that is immoral?

Saturday 2 April 2011

Inception Move Review

Leonardo DiCaprio has portrayed many characters over the years including the love stricken Jack Dawson in ‘Titanic’ and famous con-man Frank Abagnale in ‘Catch Me If You Can’, but his performance as Dominic Cobb in the multi award-winning ‘Inception’ may just be his best yet.

Cobb along with his companion Arthur played by ‘(500) Days of Summers’ Joseph Gordon-Levitt are seeking to persuade Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) to disband his father’s business after his inevitable death, through the art of inception.  ‘No idea is simple when you have to plant it in somebody's mind.’ Thoughts that are planted in a subjects mind are manipulated by their sub-conscious leading to an outcome, in this case for Fischer to break up his fathers business.

An architecture student (Ellen Page), a chemist (Dileep Rao), an impersonator (Tom Hardy) and a business man (Ken Watanabe) join Cobb and Arthur to create a team capable of performing inception. Tom Hardy brings humour to the high octane action with a number of witty one-liners and relaxed nature, whilst Ellen Page showed her talents to the fullest effect again by performing at a similar level to the outstanding DiCaprio.

The element of sub-conscious and the mind make this blockbuster relevant to everybody as we all want to know what goes on inside our minds. DiCaprio’s portrayal of such distress and desperation is something that keeps the audience on edge as this is Cobb’s last chance of sorting out his life.

 It has become the 25th highest grossing film of all time and won multiple awards including the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects which after watching it should come as no surprise.

A truly remarkable storyline backed up by great performances and the best ending to a film I have ever seen makes this film a must-see.

A short 300 word review of Inception for an assignment. Let me know what you think.

Friday 1 April 2011

End of the Regular Season

The NBA's regular season is coming to an end and seeing as the last time I posted it was around the All-Star game, that means I have been lazy.... True.

In the Eastern Conference there have been major changes. The Bulls (54-20) are the #1 seed, the Celtics (51-22) are crawling to the finish line and lots of trade action has seen many of the rosters re-shuffle. Throughout all his change the Cleveland Cavaliars (15-59) are still the worst team in the Association and the Heat (52-23) are still as erratic as Emile Heskey.

Meanwhile in the West, San Antonio (57-17) are still the best team in the League and the Dallas Mavericks (53-21) achieved their 11th straight season of 50+ wins. Kevin Love's seeminlgy never-ending streak of Double-Doubles came to an end at 53 and Jerry Sloan resigned as Head Coach of the Utah Jazz (36-39) after an amazing 23 seasons there.

The trade deadline came on 24th February and with that came some monster deals. Carmelo Anthony was traded to the NY Knicks (37-38) along with Chauncey Billups and most of NY's roster going the other way to Denver (45-29). With many expecting the Knicks to surge up the East and the Nuggets to plummet down the West. Not the case. Since the trade the Nuggets are 14 and 3 whilst the Knicks are 9 and 12. Did it take the Denver Nuggets nearly 7 seasons they maybe better without one of the best players in the League? Kendrick Perkins was traded form Boston to the OKC Thunder. Why? Perkins' presence is possibly one of the biggest intangibles in the league. He has made Oklahoma City a much bigger team and more of a threat in the off-season.

With only about 6 or 7 games left for each team until the end of the 82, my metaphorical money for the Championship is on the top 3 seeds from each conference. The Bulls, Celtics and Heat from the East and the Spurs, Lakers and Mavericks from the West. I believe it to be that tight this year.

Derrick Rose, LeBron James and Dirk Nowitzki are my front runners for MVP honours. Blake Griffin has to win the Rookie of the Year, even though he has been a bit over-hyped. The most improved player is nailed down on Kevin Love. Coach of the Year in my opinion is Tom Thibodeau of the Chicago Bulls, he would get Rookie of the Year for me, that is if Coaches were allowed to win it. The best I can hope for the Raptors (20-54) is that we get the best Draft pick possible come June time.

I will try not to be lazy and update this more throughout the Playoffs and with other posts as well....promise.