By Richard McIlroy
January 20 2018

“The money isn’t the issue here”, it rolls off the tongue as easy as a crisp note from a big wad of fivers, well it isn’t going to be an issue is it if you have just signed a contract worth for so many millions you don’t know what to do with it.

[Originally published February 12, 2001]

The latest to spout the age old platitude is the Yankees Derek Jeter, the ink was barely dry on his 10 year $189 million contract when it flew out of his mouth as quick as a Roger Clemens fast ball. It was then followed by “I just wanted to stay a Yankee,” to which a suitable response may be “if its such an honour then why do you need so much money.”

Whether it be football here, or Baseball over there, every so often the question always arises ‘are the player paid too much,’ probably, morally yes. $20 million to play a sport is far too much money, but as we know from the events of last week involving Manchester United, sport is business and the Yankees are only going to pay what he is worth to them on the field as a player, and off it as a marketing tool, because if they don’t, lets face it someone else will.

Forget the fact that at 26 years old Jeter has 4 World Series rings and batted .339 last year, the important thing here is ‘Market Forces’. If a player demands $20 million dollars a year, and the clubs is prepared to pay it, then he is, at the risk of contradicting myself, worth every penny.

But those romantics who yearn for the days of yore when sport hadn’t become sullied by the evil green back are missing the point. Back in 1860 the Cincinnati Red Stockings shocked the sport by becoming the first side to pay their players, the game according to the purist was headed for ruin. Forty years later Babe Ruth demanded $80,000 dollars a year, when told that he would then be paid more than the President he replied, “Yeah but I had a better year than Hoover did.”

Does the blue collar sport of Baseball though have sympathy for the big earners, when Mike Piazza told the Dodgers he wanted $100 million he was booed mercilessly by fans who had hero worshipped him the day before, we like them to be one of us, living out our dreams. A few more zeros on the pay slip immediately consigns you to being one of them.

Laws of economics, which I can’t pretend to understand, dictate that deals like Jeter and Rodriguez will have to come to an end and the market will have to “bottom out”, hopefully the sport, which isn’t in the best financial health, won’t take its eye off the ball before it does.