CEOs Take Heat on Salaries While Athletes Are Applauded

The NFL is having it college draft this week. It is interesting that while the public seems overly focused on CEO pay, the amount of money paid to 22-year old college kids seems to keep escalating with no qualms.

The Wall Street Journal did a ranking this week of the salaries of the top draft picks compared to the top salaries of CEOs. Ray Irani of Occidental Petroleum leads all in take home pay at $52 million, including salary, bonuses and stock options. However, after Irani, the next highest paid CEO, Bob Iger of Disney, is paid less than the top 8 draft picks. That's right. Iger, who runs a global enterprise with thousands of employees makes less than 8 college kids whose primary skill is their ability to play football. They have never been in the pros, no one is absolutely certain how they will do, but the money is paid nonetheless. Interestingly as well, only one banking CEO appears on the top 20 list (John Stumpf of Wells Fargo) and he falls in at number 20 overall and well behind the 10 top draft picks.

There seems to be so much concern with the pay of CEOs. These concerns are heightened during a recession with so many people out of work. So many people seem to be concerned with how much CEOs make, and the difference between their salaries and that of the average worker. Somehow, we believe, that if these CEOs were not paid so much there would be a bit more justice in the world.

I worked most of my career in the corporate world. I was paid well and the CEO was paid infinitely better. I saw the jobs they had to do. I would not want to do it. They were under constant pressure from the board, from employees, from the press, from the community, from investors, from everyone. Every move has consequences in real terms. People's livelihoods rest in their hands. They create wealth, they create jobs, they move the economy.

Compare this pressure with the lives of 22-year old athletes. A football player runs plays, makes tackles and entertains us. Whether their teams win or loose has zero consequence in the lives of people around the world. Certainly, they have to perform, but they are guaranteed their salaries even if they break their leg the first day of practice and do not get into a game. How do we justify athlete salary but raise concerns over the salaries of CEOs?

I have rarely heard the business community compare the salaries of athletes and executives. Somehow they have deemed this an inappropriate comparison. I think it is very relevant. We pay people to entertain us better than those who are vested with running our economy. These salaries result in higher ticket prices and higher costs of everything at the stadium to pay these salaries. If the cost of goods escalated as quickly as the cost of sporting events in the past few decades we likely would have a consumer revolution.

Somehow this seems to me to be totally out of wack. If we are to be concerned with the salaries of those who run major companies, let's at least start to question what we pay those who entertain us, and what this says about us as a society.