Do you agree with the following statement? Professional athletes do not deserve the high salaries? (I decided to participate in TOFEL recently,so this is my first practice in respect of the topic above.I want some native speaker to give me some useful suggestions) Under cameras and videos, those famous professional athletes are becoming increasingly closer to us than they used to be, and their luxurious life are unfolded in front of us—high income, expensive cars and even scandals like drug using and gambling, triggering great controversy among people about whether they deserve such high salaries. They come under fire from many people who assert that it is really unfair for them to receive extremely high income compare with common people. However, with an utterly opposite opinion, I firmly concede that they deserve it. High salaries function as a compensation to their efforts and their crucial economic source. We can imagine how much laborious work they have done to achieve today’s attainments, at which point nobody denies that they choose to become athletes at the expense of sacrificing their time, education or even health at the adolescence. With not longer than 20 years in their career, simply the most optimistic estimation, it brings into question what they live on once they retire. In the absence of knowledge and other basic skills, they are less competent to find jobs, which is proved by the cases of many retiring athletes especially in some developing countries, who are struggling in poverty and unemployment. It is thus nothing but high salaries at present to provide athletes with enough funds to afford further education or pioneer their own business at the time of retirement in the future. I embrace another faith that it is the market that never fails to give its fairest justifications, including high salaries for professional athletes. There exists a invisible market mechanism that determines how much their value is. With rise of audience ratings as well as the involvement of commerce, sports tends to become increasingly profitable. For instance, NBA, representing the highest level of basketball in the world, has signed a broadcasting contract at the price of 24 billion dollars this year, an really astronomical figure. Such astounding profitability should be ascribed in a great proportion to those NBA superstars like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, who have created such a great value. Therefore, it is rather convincing that they deserve high salaries as a reward, otherwise, the balance will be tilted in favor of capital instead of labor.