...makes the world go 'round.
- Alex
This isn't usually an argument that I care to take up... but for some reason I sat down and thought about it yesterday, and it
bothered me somewhat. So here we are. The problem? Peyton Manning signed a $99M contract yesterday, which included a 34.5M dollar
signing bonus. Let's compare that to me. I've been working for around 6 years now, with a college degree, at an average yearly salary
of... well, let's not go there. Instead, trust my calculations that it'd take me 1150 years to make 34 and a half million dollars.
Nice, eh?
The contract, I read in the press, averages out to around 14 Mil per year of the deal. It'd only take me 466 years to make that.
There's at least a good chance that I'll make 1 million dollars total in my lifetime.
But wait, we all know that Mr. Manning's case (and Champ Baily, Clinton Portis, etc.) is an extreme one. What about the "average"
NFL player? The one who's actually losing years off his life in the trenches and the weight rooms? Great question. I Googled up some
NFL salary data from USA Today, and in 2002 the team with the highest median salary was the Philadelphia Eagles, at about 760K per
year. It'd take me around 25 years to earn that, and that's somewhat ok by me. These guys are the absolute top of their profession,
and should be paid accordingly.
But I'm not buying the argument that they deserve these amazingly large amounts of cash. If they can get it, great for them. Just
let me put it this way - if you're making more money than I'll make in 25 years, I don't want to hear one single peep about "disrespect"
when a contract is offered to you.
What do you think? Drop us a line at webmaster@simpleprop.com and give us some
feedback. Maybe we'll even run your letters in future Gambits. 'The Daily Gambit' is updated every weekday.
