The ability to throw, hit, kick, catch, or bounce a ball is not worth hundreds of millions of dollars, period.
I agree, but these teams only pay their players so much because people are willing to give them even grander sums of money in tickets, merchandise and, most importantly, through corporate sponsorship.
The ridiculous amounts of money in sports has very, very little to do with the sports themselves (or the athletes) and far more with branding and turning what should be, at it's core, an extremely pure human behaviour into something disgustingly emotionally bleached and sterilized.
I love watching the best players in the world compete, but I would give it up in a heartbeat to go back to the "good ol' days" where only those who lived in a major city, or a small team with a prodigy player, could see those talents... which kept fees and wages at reasonable levels. That's what events like the World Cup should be for... to see the greatest players in the world who you otherwise wouldn't get to see.
By giving everyone 24/7 access to the greatest players in the world you strip away some of the mythical aspects of them... which is a shame.
