The Miami Heat’s Dwyane Wade has had to do a little backpedaling this week after some comments he made on Wednesday about Olympic athletes getting paid for their time spent competing for their country.
“It’s a lot of things you do for the Olympics — a lot of jerseys you sell,” Wade said. “We play the whole summer. I do think guys should be compensated. Just like I think college players should be compensated as well. Unfortunately, it’s not there. But I think it should be something, you know, there for it. The biggest thing is now you get no rest. So you go to the end of the season, [Team USA] training camp is two weeks later. You’re giving up a lot to do it. It’s something you want to do. But it’s taxing on your body. You’re not playing for the dollar. But it would be nice if you would get compensated.”
Wade tried to clear up those comments on his Twitter account.
“I’m reading a lot of reports coming out about my comments re: the Olympics and compensation. And I want to clear this up personally… I responded 2 a specific question asked by a reporter on my thoughts of Olympians being paid. I never asked to be paid to PLAY. What I was referencing is there is a lot of Olympic business that happens that athletes are not a part of – and it’s a complicated issue.”
He goes on to say how proud he is to have been part of past Dream Teams and how excited he is to play this summer in London.
Even though Wade claims he was talking about all Olympians, he specifically references the NBA season, so it’s pretty clear he was talking about basketball players. He can say all he wants that he doesn’t want a paycheck for his contribution to the Olympic team, but I’m going to say that’s just cover up so he doesn’t look like an unpatriotic d-bag.
However, he does raise an interesting point about merchandise. Why shouldn’t the players see some of the money that comes from the selling of their Dream Team jerseys? Shouldn’t all the Olympic athletes get a little cash from the commercial time being sold during their events?
I know that all the NBA players that participate in the 2012 games already make millions and millions of dollars, and advocating for them to get more seems selfish, but there is a lot of money that gets made off of them, shouldn’t they get to see some of it? They are putting in a lot to go and play for their country, and I don’t think it should be a salary-based payday because they are volunteering to play, but there is some extra cash flow that could and should be spread around.
