Death of the sports icon?

ESPN headline from about 5 months or so read “Yankees and Derek Jeter agree to contract extension”. The two sides had reached an agreement after battling back and forth on the value of the contract. Derek Jeter has been the face the New York Yankees and more importantly the face of players free from the taint of steroid allegations. Jeter has been deemed the prototypical “good guy” of baseball yet his contract talks were extensive because the team couldn’t evaluate Jeter’s aging abilities. Meanwhile the co-face of the Yankee’s, Alex Rodriguez, receives a very hefty contract when he was signed, despite admitting to previous steroid use. When analyzing Jeter and Rodriguez’s respective contract situations there is question of whether it pays off to be honest and use all natural abilities when playing in professional sports world now plagued by performance enhancing drugs.

The continuous use of performance enhancing drugs could very well result in the lessening of respect for professional sports and a decrease in viewership. The proof of this is already visible today. The constant connections to steroids in sports are already causing the sports world and viewers to suffer. Many boxing fans are being deprived of what many will consider the greatest fight of all time due to steroids. A bout between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao because Mayweather belief that Pacquiao uses steriods and Pacquiao's refusal to take drug test that would disprove Mayweathers claims

The professional athlete is considered to be one who already has above average athleticism and skill. It is their rare ability to perform a sport at a high level that justifies their very high payment to play their respective sport professionally. For those very same reasons fans that may not possess the God given abilities that athletes have often attach themselves to them in hopes of living vicariously through them. With such constant admiration, the notion of an athlete cheating in a sport hurts not only their image but also those who believed in their natural abilities. Their larger than life persona depletes itself and can give the fan who once admired them the mindset that they were never so special and if given performance enhancers they too could be a professional, thus killing the notion of the sports icon.