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For much of this 21st century, I have picked my jaw up off the floor as breaking news scrolls across the television on ESPN's BottomLine. With every new contract signing in professional major league sports, the hairs on the back of my neck go stiff as I shake my head in disbelief.
Today's contracts in sports are at an all-time high. Whether it is the NFL, NBA, NHL or MLB, breaking into the major leagues will guarantee an athlete a lifetime of financial stability. It doesn't matter if you're a 40-year-old veteran or a 21-year-old rookie, the money you are granted upon signing the dotted line is unfathomable.
Just ask Matthew Stafford, the NFL's first overall draft pick in 2009.
The Detroit Lions guaranteed him $41.75 million just three months after he took his first legal sip of alcohol. In addition to his yearly base salary and performance incentives, Stafford's record-breaking contract can pocket him up to $70 million over six years.
It's too bad that money has the Lions sitting at 1-8 on the season.
Even the last pick of this year's draft, Ryan Succop, is pocketing $310,000 this season. On top of a $25,000 signing bonus, Succop can make $1.21 million if he plays out his three-year contract. And all he does is kick a football through two field goal posts.
At least NBA and NHL owners have a little control with their checkbooks.
Blake Griffin will only bank about $5 million this season with the Los Angeles Clippers, and John Tavares makes $900,000 on top of a $2.850 million signing bonus in Long Island.
Unfortunately, that money has landed Griffin on the bench after suffering a knee injury in the preseason. At least Tavares is showing promise.
I bust my butt working two part-time jobs just to have enough money to party on the weekend. In the meantime, professional athletes younger than me are having a hard time deciding which private jet to take to their next vacation spot. Maybe I should've spent a little bit more time focusing on athletics during my childhood.
How about the veterans? How about the guys who made a name for themselves and proved they have what it takes to be a professional athlete?
Athletes signed some of the biggest contracts in sports history this year. From CC Sabathia's $161 million contract with the New York Yankees to Albert Haynesworth's $100 million deal with the Washington Redskins, money in the major leagues has flown as freely as leaves on a windy autumn day. Heck, even Urban Meyer was given $24 million to coach the Florida Gators' collegiate football team.
To put these contracts into a clearer perspective, ESPN created 'Salary Crunch' – a simulated calculator that compares a person's yearly salary to an athlete's contract based on their season statistics.
To give you an idea of the magnitude of these contracts, I used an average annual salary of $50,000 as the base of the simulator.
The results are astonishing.
It takes Sabathia half a strikeout, half an inning pitched, and four-hundredths of a win to make the average person's income. It takes Haynesworth half a game, three-hundredths of a sack and a fifth of a tackle. For someone making $50,000 a year, it would take 460 years to make Sabathia's annual salary and 286 years to make Haynesworth's.
I won't even try to make comparisons to Tiger Woods. The world's richest athlete is on pace to pass $1 billion in earnings come 2010. Those statistics could cause someone to go into immediate cardiac arrest.
As fans in the stands, we seem to forget that we are watching multi-millionaires at a day on the job. Behind the home runs, hat-tricks, slam dunks and touchdown are obscene amounts of money in an economy stuck in recession. Adding insult to injury is the fact that we spend our hard-earned money to see these athletes in action.
Like any other profession, professional athletes are the best in the world at what they do, and I respect that. But are they really worth hundreds of millions of dollars to swing a bat, shoot a ball or throw a pigskin?
I don't think so.
But then again, what would the world be like without professional sports?
E-mail: joe.paterno@ubspectrum.com
