from Amazon
Friday, January 30, 2009
The perversity of sports salaries?
MIKE BRUDENELL dares to say:
I find paying players millions and millions of dollars to hit a baseball, catch a football or smack a hockey puck around perverse. But I’d probably — no, most certainly — take the money if it were offered.
What about making a career for forty years in TALKING about such people? Isn’t that even more “perverse”? My guess is that if you were to list the total career compensation for all sports-related people, John Madden probably tops the list:
A salary of $5 million a year for an icon like John Madden to broadcast a sport that brings in billions of dollars in revenue is certainly justifiable. Just as $6,000 for Randy Bartz—to provide a few weeks of commentary for a sport that only receives national attention once every four years—also seems perfectly reasonable.
Question: How much was Hannah Storm offered to leave CNN and work as a sportscaster for NBC?
Answer: Hannah Storm was reportedly offered an annual salary of $1.5 million in 1996 to join NBC Sports.