Pat_Nasty
Third String But Playing on Special Teams
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- Aug 20, 2006
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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.
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.