Television and expanded marketing opportunities, for athletes.

I suspect that musicians are earning less than they did a decade or two ago. There's no way for a Michael Jackson to sell a Thriller album in today's fragmented, digital marketplace.

An athlete's or musician's salary is linked to their performance on the playing field or in the market. The people writing their paychecks are not themselves musicians or athletes. Executives, on the other hand, often make huge amounts of money even if their company is tanking. The people writing their checks -- members of the board -- are themselves executives. Perhaps they are subconsciously conspiring to keep prices high for their services?

It doesn't have to be this way. Germany requires that the board includes employees. Japan has also succeeded, perhaps by applying social pressure, in keeping executive salaries reasonable in most cases.

I'll leave the details there up to people more knowledgeable in sports and music, but are you saying you think the system is working well when many CEOs steering their companies to destruction yield massive guaranteed compensation packages that are totally disconnected from performance?

I'm all for paying people whatever it takes, even if that means some people make previously insane sums of money. But they should have to make their company MORE profitable, not less.