Kurt Warner says he just wants a ‘fair market offer’ from the Arizona Cardinals. Manny Ramirez doesn’t think a two-year, $42 million offer from the Los Angeles Dodgers is worthy of his signature. Meanwhile, thousands of every day people out there would give up a body part to get anything close to a fair market offer on the house they are desperate to sell.
It’s not that often that real life problems intersect with professional sports, but the current economic recession is one of those moments, whether players and agents want to acknowledge it or not.
Hey, I’m a former player. I know all about the need to ‘get while the getting is good.’ Pro athletes need to earn every dollar they can while they can. Careers are short. Your days as a top end earner are very limited. Believe me, I get all that.
But that doesn’t mean players can ignore what’s going on in the real world…or that there’s any sort of ‘collusion’ going on (as many feel will be alleged by the baseball player’s union in the coming days) in an effort to get all they can while they can. There are limits. In this case, reality bites.
The situation now is different – and dire. Far be it for me to shed too many tears for the leagues or clubs that can afford to pay zillions to a .250 hitter. But the fact is that revenue streams for clubs are running very low. Finding advertising sponsors is much much harder than it was even a year ago, and the amount that these companies can afford to pay to advertise is not what it was even a few months ago. The government has had to step in and bail out financial companies like Citibank and many others…so how is it those companies can justify turning around and spending thousands on the sponsorship of a pro franchise? They can’t…and the players need to realize that.
The fact is that team sponsorships do have a positive impact on the sales and productivity of the companies that get involved. That’s why they’re going forward with the naming of the new stadium for the New York Mets, “Citi Field.” It does make financial sense – but within reason.
And that’s what the players need to realize. They can still make millions – within some sort of reason. Under the circumstances, the Dodgers offer to Ramirez in way past fair. It’s incredibly generous, especially when you consider that the Dodgers really aren’t biding against anyone else. Yes, the Dodgers want to defer some of the money (that would elevate the contract offer to $45 mil over those same two years). That doesn’t mean he won’t get it, it just means the payments get more spread out. Even the notorious agent Scott Boras, who is essentially dickering over $3 million with LA at the moment, needs to realize that now is NOT the time to try to squeeze out every last single cent from an organization like the Dodgers, who believe it or not, do not print money.
Ditto with Warner and the Cardinals. The quarterback recently told ESPN that he thinks he's worth more than the reported $10-$12 million for a single season that the Cardinals have offered. He may up and move to the San Francisco 49’ers if they will offer him an extra $2 mil. That would mean giving up on the team he led to the Super Bowl – after he previously said he’d retire before he played for anyone else – over $2 mil. I never sniffed that kind of money. Maybe if I’d have been good enough to live in that stratosphere, I’d feel differently. But come on, when is enough enough? It’s been well documented that Warner and his family are very charitable, which is fantastic. But this dickering over what amounts to peanuts in their financial world flies in the face of reason.
When the attacks of September 11, 2001 happened, pro athletes became relief workers. The games stopped, and everyone pitched in to do whatever they could in the aftermath. And while this recession is a different kind of national disaster, it’s no less real. It offers another chance for professional athletes to step up and do what they can. In this case, that means taking less, doing more, and giving up on any stupid claims of collusion.
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