Well, for Olympic athletes proper, who are often amateurs or semi-professionals, this may be true, but for professional athletes who compete in major sports such as association football or basketball, this doesn’t seem to be the case: top-level athletes are able to command salaries in the order of $1M - $10M per year. Assuming the market isn’t grossly inefficient, this implies that there are very few people in the world who can perform these jobs delivering the same level of performance, despite the high demand. Thus, any single top-level athlete in these sports probably produces a significant amount of economic value.
Top-level basketball players get payed based on their skill in comparision to other basketball players.
An action that increaes the average skill level of all basketball players a bit won’t increase the amount of money that basketball fans are willing to pay for watching basketball games.
Well, for Olympic athletes proper, who are often amateurs or semi-professionals, this may be true, but for professional athletes who compete in major sports such as association football or basketball, this doesn’t seem to be the case: top-level athletes are able to command salaries in the order of $1M - $10M per year. Assuming the market isn’t grossly inefficient, this implies that there are very few people in the world who can perform these jobs delivering the same level of performance, despite the high demand. Thus, any single top-level athlete in these sports probably produces a significant amount of economic value.
Top-level basketball players get payed based on their skill in comparision to other basketball players.
An action that increaes the average skill level of all basketball players a bit won’t increase the amount of money that basketball fans are willing to pay for watching basketball games.