Big, big money
Columnist Jenni Carlson says pro athletes deserve their salaries.
W hen professional athletes go gaga over a contract, you know it’s big.
And James Harden’s new deal is just that.
He signed a four-year, $170 million extension with Houston on Saturday. It guarantees him $228 million through the 2022-23 season. It ranks as the most lucrative contract in NBA history.
Other players took to social media to gush over the deal. Chris Paul, Harden’s new teammate, asked if he could hold some of the cash. Dwyane Wade scripted a fictional conversation between himself, Carmelo Anthony and Harden about how jawdropping the numbers are. No less than LeBron James marveled about the money.
Thing is, if Russell Westbrook signs his extension with the Thunder, it’ll surpass Harden’s megadeal, which surpassed Steph Curry’s, which surpassed Blake Griffin’s.
Big bucks are flowing these days in the NBA. The numbers are hard to wrap your head around, but as Harden’s deal is now structured, he’ll make $46.8 million in the final year of it — or $570,731 per game.
Yes, half a million dollars a game is a lot. Even in the United States, the richest country in the world, that’s sig-
Experts say the average American earns somewhere between $1 million and $5 million in their lifetime, so Harden will earn that in less than a month’s worth of games.
And still, there should be zero complaints about how much these guys are getting.
I mean, saying you wish you made that much every time you showed up for work is one thing. Who doesn’t want that? But to begrudge these salaries? To call them outrageous? To say they’re not worth it?
No way.
Our society doesn’t wring its hands over actors or entertainers or business leaders who make tens of millions of dollars. Forbes recently released its list of the highest-paid entertainers for 2016-17. There were singers and actors and authors and athletes, and there were some big numbers. The list was topped by Diddy at $130 million, Beyonce at $105 million and J.K. Rowling at $95 million.
But there was no outrage over such figures.
I might not understand why anyone would pay Howard Stern even a dollar for his raunchy radio much less 90 million of them, but still, we accept it and move on.
But when athletes score a big payday, lots of people want to start talking about how many teachers’ salaries could be paid with that money. Or how many homeless people could be housed. Or how much cancer research could be funded.
Why is that? Why do we lament these salaries and not others?
First, a vast majority of Americans played sports at some point in their lives. We hit a golf ball or shot a basketball. We kicked a soccer ball or caught a baseball. But even if we played competitively, we still saw sports largely as play. Something fun. Something frivolous.
Rightfully so, mind you.
So, when athletes at the highest level start earning half a million dollars per game, it doesn’t seem right. Aren’t they just playing a sport? Aren’t they simply having fun?
Professional athletes may very well be having fun, but sports as most of us experienced them are so very different from what they do. We know that. Of course we do. We know that the American League Championship Series is different from a Tuesday night at Dolese Park.
And yet, our brains still have a hard time flipping the switch completely. We still have difficulty comprehending how someone could get paid so much to play games that so many of us have played.
Second, there’s a civic-pride aspect to professional sports. We see these teams as part of the fabric of our communities. They make our lives richer and fuller and better. We support them, in part, because they are a point of pride.
We give our money, our time, our energy.
When an athlete signs a mega deal, it can sting. The fans give, and the player takes. And takes. And takes.
It’s a faulty premise, of course. Pro sports are the athletes’ livelihood, not their civic duty. What they do isn’t akin to picking up litter or volunteering at the neighborhood school. Again, we know this is true. But it’s still hard to make our brains flip that switch completely.
These players are entertainers who work tirelessly on their craft, making billions for their league and millions for their teams. They sell tickets and merchandise. They draw fans to arenas and viewers to televisions.
The elitist among them deserve a big, thick cut.
Should Westbrook sign his extension with the Thunder this summer, his average salary is projected to skyrocket to a projected $39.2 million a year. That wouldn’t just be an NBA record. That would be a record in all of American sports.
He’d deserve every red cent.