Pat_Nasty

I've noticed that in a lot of threads about Asante Samuel's contract, the idea is frequently floated that $7 million dollars should be enough for anybody, and that Asante Samuel is just "greedy" for wanting more.

Most people will never see that kind of money in their lives, this is true... but that kind of reasoning has no end. Am I being "greedy" when I want my boss to give me a $5,000 dollar raise on my modest 5-figure salary because he just hired some new kid who's no more talented than I am for more than I'm making? I mean, on my way to work on the subway every morning, I ride with a lot of people working their asses off for minimum wage... and if they complain about their minimum wage jobs are they being "greedy" because there are hundreds of thousands of children starving to death right now in Africa who could feed their families for a week on what the guy cleaning the subway car will make in a day? Where does it end?

Anyway, all that aside, people seem to often get very bent out of shape over the salaries of athletes, more so than over their colleagues in other areas of the entertainment industry.... And make no mistake, while to us football might seem like more than just entertainment, when it comes down to it, it's a "show" just like any other, and the profits are made by ticket sales and broadcast rights just like any movie you've ever seen.

Here, then, are a few examples of the 2006 income of a few other people in the entertainment industry... if a football player wanting a few more million a year rubs you the wrong way, the fact that these people are still driving hard bargains for their services at this point should infuriate you to no end:

Oprah Winfrey, talk show host: $260 million

Madonna, singer/danger/children's book author: $72 million

Brad Pitt, actor/tabloid fodder: $35 mil

Johnny Depp, actor/mascara-wearing pirate: $92 million

Elton John, musician/world's most beloved gay: $53 million

Tom Cruise, actor/Scientology evangelist: $31 million (a down year for him.)

Jay-Z, rapper/clothing designer/Beyonce-beau: $83 million

Steven Spielberg, director/producer/future-Indian-Jones-franchise-ruiner: $110 million.

Tom Hanks, actor/everyman/hair-do victim: $74 million

Howard Stern, insufferable bastard: $70 million

Simon Cowell, tv personality/resident curmudgeonly-brit: $45 mil

Jerry Seinfeld, former sitcom star, stand-up comedian who worked a total of 50 shows last year: $60 million

Most, if not all, of these people will earn more between this year and last year than Nate Clements will earn from his contract. All of these people continue to have their agents push for higher and higher paydays on each future project, despite having made probably 10 times the amount any football player will ever see. These negotiations just usually don't get the same kind of scrutiny.

Pujo

It's pointless to compare football players' salaries to average real-world salaries, the only comparisson that makes sense is football players' salaries to each other, or to the cap. Anyone making the argument that $8 million should be enough for anyone is missing the point: if $8 million is enough, $30 million is still better.

upstater1

How can I get a job as a danger? I heard it pays well.

Pats726

I agree it's pointless when you have a larger pictire to deal with...and there is NO salary cap in other sports OR in the entertainment world...OR for that matter in the business worlld,,which is totally overlooked there..and which would make entertainers look like drops in the bucket...$30 million better?? If one's goal is pure greed, of course 30 mill is better..but in a salary capped sport where it's a takes a team to win,,for a team bigger doesn't mean better at all.

Pats726

Why don't you compare the entertainers to all the corporate bigwigs who got bonuses in the millions??? OR is that less outrageous for you??

LA Pats Fan

Looks like you have the ultimate apples to oranges comparision here.

Of all the people on your list how much would you pay anyone of them to play cornerback for New England?

Or reversely - why doesn't Asante change careers to talk show host where he can get more money.

Heck why don't you or I apply for Oprah's Job.

In my opinion I don't think many people care what football players WANT for money or what they eventually get. We may be sickened by their whinning on how poor they are but I beleive most of us are concerned with the effect to the team.

If you work for a company with more than just a few employees you know that everyone gets paid differently and some people resent that other make more than they do if they feel they have greater value. A football team is no different. With 53 players on a team and $109M in cap space, it doesn't take much math to slot out what salary ranges are available for any particular postion, or person gets.

The real question is what Asante eventually gets make sense to his value with respect to other players on the team or other players that can play his postion can do at a lower cost.

The people you list below are not on a team nor limited by salary cap.

vyrago

Or conversely, he could become a danger, like Madonna. I'm thinking of giving that a try myself if it's not too hard and there are no exams to pass.

Pat_Nasty

Apples to oranges? Looks like somebody doesn't know his entertainment history.

Compared to the media's history, film + TV performers have only quite recently begun to break the bank. In fact, for quite some time, they were in quite a similar position to football players -- they were the "talent" that drove an immensely profitable industry, and were very highly-paid by most American's standards, but because of a number of artificial salary restrictions imposed by the organizations that employed them, were not being paid proportionally to profits, and were making a number of already-filthy-rich studio bosses even richer. In fact, the studio system was very similar to the NFL in that it kept salaries down by allowing studios to lock up exclusive rights to a performer, so that the actors couldn't let competition between studios dictate their wages.

Following prolonged legal battles with cinema owners and the newly formed actors guild, the Classic Hollywood studio system of the 1920's that allowed the studios to lock up actors longterm and dictate their salaries was put to an end in the late 40's and early 50's. In essence, performers suddenly all became "free agents" and their paychecks have been growing ever since. The first major blow to the studios was an antitrust suit originally filed in 1938. This could easily be seen as a parallell of the ground-breaking anti-trust suits that won the players rights to limited free agency in the late '80s/early '90s.

So, yes, while the entertainers I list are not limited by a salary cap, their predecessors were limited by a contractual system just as binding -- and no where near as arbitrary as the salary cap.

Bill Belichick and Scott Pioli can justify not wanting to hand out a big contract because of its cap ramifications because it's their job to work within the confines of the thread... but because the salary cap is an entirely arbitrary system instituted to artificially reduce the player's salaries, it shouldn't really be used by fans to defend their outrage over the fact that players make so much more than they do.

SkiHound

I'm an insuferable bastard, why am I not making Howard Stern's money? I think the reference group has to be other football players, and specifically, other CBs. Many guys who make it to the NFL never see a big pay day and many experience injuries that damage their long term quality of life and, in many cases, their expected lifespan. IMO, the NFL CBA really favors owners. And I don't see why the players union ever agreed to a franchise tag. Samuels sees this as his opportunity to make a big pay day and really secure his future. He can sign the tender and make $7+ million this year (granted I'd be more than happy with that, but my reference group is pretty different). Some possible outcomes are that he has great year and scores a big contract next year, has an OK year and gets an OK contract next year, etc. But he could also experience an injury that would threaten his career or drastically reduce his future market value. Ultimately I think he plays because ultimately I think he'll realize it's probably a bad business decision to not play. He'd be leaving a lot of money on the table that would be difficult to recover in future contracts, he could experience an injury during the last 6 weeks of the season and loose much of the $7+ million plus possible future earnings, and by not playing his market value might decrease.

OhExaulted1

In a perfect world we would associate those salaries with policemen, firemen, EMT's and military personel to name a few.

To see that large of a gap between people who actually make a difference in Joe public's life and people who "entertain" borders on disgusting.