Sports World Has Gone Berserk On Salaries
By John J. Duncan Jr.
duncanj@knoxfocus.com
The sports world started going crazy several years ago in the salaries it was paying to coaches and players. Now it has gone berserk or has become unhinged.
In the baseball winter meetings a few days ago, the Washington Nationals signed a pitcher that even most big fans of the sport had never heard of, Michael Soroka, to a $9,000,000, one-year contract. His record last season was 0 and 10 – that’s no wins and 10 losses.
This is nine million dollars for a man who pitched a total of only 111 innings in the last two seasons and whose earned run average was a very mediocre 4.74 last year, and a terrible 6.40 in 2023. On top of all that, he was out for two full seasons – 2021 and 2022 – I suppose due to arm problems.
A few days earlier, the New York Mets signed Juan Soto, admittedly a great player, to a 15-year, $765 million contract. That’s $51,000,000 a year for playing baseball.
At least this was quite a bit less than what the Los Angeles Dodgers signed Shohei Ohtani to before last season – $700 million for 10 years.
I suppose the reason I have gotten so upset about these very exorbitant salaries is that I grew up as a very big sports fan and still am, although now reluctantly so.
My late wife told me it was just because I was jealous, although I don’t believe anyone can really earn that kind of money.
Also, because so much of these ridiculous salaries comes from advertising, it means that this is driving up prices for almost everything.
You can’t really boycott sports unless you start living like the Unabomber in a one-room cabin in the Montana mountains, because almost every product is advertised on sports.
Regular readers of my column know that I wrote one entitled “$77 Million To Not Coach Is Crazy” about Texas A&M buying out the contract of its head football coach.
When LSU paid $17 million to Coach Ed Orgeron to buy out his contract, he said he told the athletics director: “What time do you want me to leave and what door do you want me to go out of, brother?”
Earlier, Auburn University had paid $21 million to get one coach to leave and then ended up paying his successor $15 million to quit.
Almost two years ago, I wrote that I thought paying the head football coach at U.T. nine million dollars a year was way too much. I wrote, “I believe down deep inside, even he would admit he is not worth $24,000 a day.”
At the end of that column, I added: “Every major university could get great football coaches for far less than these people are being paid today. Any university whose athletic department is taking in so many millions of dollars should not have the gall to keep asking state legislators to also give them millions from low and middle income taxpayers.”
Many years ago when I owned part of the Knoxville Smokies, we sponsored a “Diamond Dinner” with Pete Rose as the main speaker.
During a question and answer session during the evening, one fan asked Rose, “Pete, is any player worth a million dollars a year?” Rose replied, “Hell, no. Not me or anybody else. But you put yourself in my shoes. If they are crazy enough to pay it, I’m crazy enough to take it.” He added that he loved the game so much, he probably would have played for free if he had to.
Some have said it is free market capitalism. Not really. It is government-protected and government-sponsored capitalism.
First, the 1922 U.S. Supreme Court case of Federal Baseball Club vs. The National League saying baseball was a sport and not interstate commerce and thus not subject to the Sherman Antitrust Act is now a joke and should be revisited.
Second, local and state governments that build billion-dollar stadiums for billionaire owners should be given far less federal money.
Third, universities with mega-million athletic departments should not be subsidized with so much federal and state tax and student loan money.
Fourth, I am proud that I never voted for any tax increase, because the least economical, least efficient way to spend money is to turn it over to government, and especially the federal government. But I now believe that there should be a special tax applied to income over, say, $2,000,000 a year to go directly to the insolvent Social Security Fund.
And while I am on a kick about ridiculous salaries, the $10,000,000 plus a year paid to the top man at TVA is also at the top of my list. Many people still have a hard time paying their utility bills.
