WTF ?

Ever wonder why you can’t afford to attend a professional sporting event? Could it be the enormity of players’ salaries?

Barry Zito, a 28-year old pitcher, has just inked a contract with the San Francisco Giants worth a cool $126 million over 7 years. Not taking into account bonuses and extensions, that comes out to $18,000,000 a season.

Let’s say, for argument sake, that he starts roughly 34 games per year. How does $529,411 per game sound? That works out to $58,823 an inning if he pitches a full 9-inning game. If that game is a no-hitter he makes $19,607 per batter struck out (about $6,535 per pitch.)

WTF people! What’s wrong with this picture?

Baseball, basketball, football and even hockey players are now becoming the nation’s newest millionaires. Sure, their careers are relatively short and they need to make as much money as they can as quickly as possible, but shit – they can find another job after sports. Sell cars – become a broadcaster – peddle insurance – whatever it takes. Instead of buying mansions and Bentleys and tons of drugs, maybe they should save some of those big bucks for later in life.

No one is worth $18 million a year just because they can throw a fucking baseball. The sooner the leagues and team owners realize this fact and start cutting salaries back to reasonable amounts, the sooner you and I can attend a professional sporting event without taking second mortgages on our homes to pay for the tickets.

Later,

obi