>I would love to know what leads you to believe that a bloke playing
>a game is the origin of all this wealth rather than all those other
>people, even the marketing people who created the desire to go watch
>the game, or the builders who built the sports ground, or the people
>who made the ball and mowed the grass.
George Will said when it comes to baseball he's a semi-marxist. He said people have been paying to watch baseball for decades and not one ever paid to see an owner.
I don't think anyone here would argue against what you're saying in broad terms, but sports isn't the best illustration. In sports, without the athlete there is no product. People were watching it before it was marketed and before anyone built stadiums to play in.
And if you want to talk about exploitation in the strong sense, sports in the U.S. before about 30 years ago *would* be a good example. The big salaries people make now, and as Eric said it's very few athletes who reach those heights, are a recent development. Baseball players were private property of the owners for a hundred years or more before they became free agents with the help of big gun labor organizer Marvin Miller.