A top-flight professional athlete is hard to come by and even more difficult to replace. Teams competing for the services of these athletes drives up the price.
The Ravens were going to pay Flacco at some point, whether it was the exclusive franchise tag ($19 million) or a long-term deal. And if the Ravens weren't going to give it to him, the Browns, Cardinals and Jaguars would have been more than happy to sign that record-setting check. But the Ravens were never going to let go of Flacco. Baltimore knows how hard it is to find a franchise quarterback. The Ravens went through 15 starting quarterbacks in their first 12 years of existence -- from Vinny Testaverde to Troy Smith -- before drafting this big-armed, lanky prospect out of the University of Delaware.
http://espn.go.com/blog/afcnorth/post/_/id/66304/joe-flacco-earned-his-history-making-deal
They would be paid much more if there were no salary caps like baseball and viable competing leagues for basketball(international leagues are viable, NBA players probably have the most leverage in that area for bargaining---imagine if the NBA didn't have a salary cap and then see how much Lebron would be paid), football, baseball, and hockey(not sure the strength of the KHL but NHL players did agree to contracts for overseas leagues during the lockout).
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