I was eating lunch at Crown and Anchor Pub and on the TV was ESPN. They announced that a pitcher (forgot his name) just signed a 7 year contract for $175 million. At first I was astonished at how much money he was getting per year ($25 million) just because it is a large sum of money. Then I realized that my PhD adviser and 20+ other professors at three universities plus various international universities and industry partners won a ERC grant (Engineering Research Center) from NSF (National Science Foundation) last fall for $18.5 million over 5 years which means that the pitcher can fund our research center in one year with a decent amount of change leftover. That is ridiculous!
I do understand that not every professional athlete gets payed that much, that a lot of them donate to charity, and that there definite benefits to sports entertainment but it still seems extreme to pay someone so much for doing something (much better) that I did for recess while people that have a huge impact on society like teachers are paid far less.