How do the NBA, NFL and MLB Compare With European Football and Cricket?

Five different sports, numerous countries, and varied skill demands—what could possibly be so similar about European football, cricket, American football, basketball, and baseball?

And it isn’t the fact that each sport contains the use of a ball in the game.

Think about what is needed to entice top-quality athletes to join and play a sport at the highest level, what is needed within a club or a team so it can run. I can guarantee you are right—it's the money!

Have you ever actually thought about the ridiculous amount of money that sport has played around with over the recent years? Money is a necessity in life. Every person hoping to survive in today’s world will need a sufficient income, enough to live on and be happy with.

Yet sport sees money as more of a monopoly game, throwing it around when it seems applicable!

Obviously money and its demand have increased over the years, and needs have risen in cost, but there is a barrier. Sport in general has overstepped that line.

One of the first blatant sports to show a real enormity in money usage is European football. In the modern world, you’d be lucky enough to attend a premiership football game for less than £30.

As for the charge for footballers to play at the top quality clubs, the rates are despicable. The latest big money signing was Fernando Torres’ move to Liverpool last summer. It would unveil as £21m plus another footballer in order for the Spanish star to make his “destined” move.

David Beckham, now at American MLS side LA Galaxy, made one of the most expensive moves ever. A footballer at heart, but a “celebrity” in the public eye, Beckham managed to complete another media focused deal worth £128m over a period of five years.

The sort of money that a whole street couldn’t earn in a lifetime, let alone five years.

The examples of extortionate money use don’t just lie within European football. There are definitions lying all over the world of this extravagant money consumption. In America, basketball, American football, and baseball have all taken an interest in spending high amounts of money to recruit desired players.

In basketball, the prices paid for players aren’t a pretty reading. Players such as Shaquille O’ Neal and Kevin Garnett are on contracts worth $20m+ per year. In American football, top players such as Dwight Freeney and Marc Bulger are also earning more than $20m a year, with Freeney earning an awesome amount of $30m.

American businessman Tom Hicks, well known in America for his multi-million pound status, and known in England, or more specifically on Merseyside, for his bad co-ownership of Liverpool FC, spent a whopping amount in running his American baseball side, the Texas Rangers.

He put forward $252m to buy one player and have his services at the club on a 10 year deal. This was, and still is, equivalent to around $21m per year, with an extra $10m signing bonus.

The latest phenomenon of extreme spending to hit our sporting world was in cricket and the introduction of the IPL (Indian Premier League). This type of game is 20twenty cricket, which involves players from all top domestic teams playing in India and receiving fees of around £1.5m for a total of four weeks—£400,000 a week.

All for what? Playing two days of sport a week and then lounging in the pub or in front of the TV for the rest of the week.

This fault in today’s sporting world can clearly be seen, and something should be done. Yet there is always going to be an increase in money and social wealth, leading to even further increases in money paid to players.

The question is, when will it stop? And how far will it rise?