At least once a year some super athlete lands a multimillion-dollar contract, and the press is all agog over the seemingly astronomical salary. You will hear sports writers and other persons commenting that no one is “worth” that kind of salary just for playing a sport. Before we can determine whether an athlete is overpaid, we must first establish an athlete’s marginal revenue product (MRP). Economists have come up with several estimates of the MRP of athletic superstars. One of these was Wayne Gretzky, thought to be the best professional hockey player ever, who was traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988. The Oilers received $15 million and some draft picks for Gretzky. When we add in his salary, we find that the Kings paid about $6.5 million a year to have Gretzky play for them. After his contract was announced, Los Angeles TV decided to expand its coverage from 37 to 60 games. Season ticket sales and attendance at home games experienced significant increases. It has been estimated that the Great Gretzky’s first year MRP was about $8 million.

How might you calculate the MRP of today’s cinematic superstars?