Effects of Pay on Performance 1
Effects of Pay and How It Ultimately Affects the Performance of Professional Athletes
Victoria Jordan
Husson University
Effects of Pay on Performance 2
Facts:
● It has been proven that there is a direct correlation to performance in athletes and how
much they get paid to complete specific tasks.
● Winning athletes will definitely make more money and get more benefits than an athlete
that does not win. (Nero, P)
● There have been several studies that show that knowing of a possible reward can not
only push people to do better, but can also cause them to “choke” and make poor
decisions, causing the loss of the reward. (Wells, B. M., & Skowronski, J. J.)
● One might compare a golfer’s initial-round score (or an average over a few initial or
non-pressure rounds) with his or her final round ‘‘pressure’’ score. Golfers with a higher
score in the final round than in their initial rounds could be thought of as choking. (Wells,
B. M., & Skowronski, J. J.)
● Diversity in the group of athletes and workers can affect pay which would ultimately
affect performance. (Backes-Gellner, U., & Pull, K.)
● If underdogs feel they have no chance to win a tournament they will have no incentive to
exert additional effort to try and win. Same with unrivaled stars that are used to winning
and feel no need to try and excel when they know they can win without really trying.
(Backes-Gellner, U., & Pull, K.)
● Golfers earn a regular annual salary earned from endorsements based off of Earnings
(The amount of prize money won), Driving Distance (The average number of yards of a
drive), Fairways Hit (The percentage of drives landing in the fairway), Putting (The
putting average per green), Sand Saves (The percentage of times a player uses at most
two shots to score from a greenside sand trap), Starts (The number of tournaments
played in since 1996) (Nero, P)
Effects of Pay on Performance 3
● A 5% improvement in a veteran golfers game may result in a monetary increase
$387,956 (Nero, P)
● The old saying “drive for show and putt for dough” has rung true through the years of
competitive golf as it always comes down to the last stroke on the green where there are
hundreds of people watching you. (Nero, P)
● Improving putting and making drives more accurate will increase earnings over making a
drive go further. (Nero, P)
● Athletes are often told that the name of the team is more important than their own name
but many players want to make amazing plays to get better contracts and become better
known in the sports community. (Uhlmann, E. L., & Barnes, C. M.)
● High stake contexts affect the way players play because there is often more at stake
