Contracts in sports have been a highly debated topic in sports media as of late. There is a lot that goes into a contract for an athlete and they continue to evolve. NFL players take the most beating and the biggest threat to their lives, yet do not have the biggest contracts.
Bryce Harper just signed the largest contract in North American sports history until Mike Trout signed an even larger contract extension with the Los Angeles Angels. Trout’s contract is a 12-year-deal worth $430 million in total. Baseball contracts are much more than football contracts but there is much more physical beating on football players bodies.
Gerald Healey, a junior accounting major at Cabrini, believes the difference in sports contracts is due to the value of the sport the athlete is playing.
“Basketball players make a lot because there are only 12 people on each team, football has a 53-man roster then a practice squad,” Healey said. “So I understand where that difference in the contracts comes into play but football players take so much beating on their body, they deserve a big contract as well.”
In football wide receivers make more money than running backs do but running back contracts are trending upward as of a few years ago. In 2017, Atlanta Falcons running back Devonta Freeman became the highest paid running back in the league with a contract of $8.25 million per year.
That number within the last year has been crushed due to Todd Gurley and LeVeon Bell signing contract extensions. Bell and Gurley both believed they were worth more than $8.25 million because they saw wide receivers make $16 million per year, yet Bell and Gurley produce on the field more than those players.
Photo by: Wikimedia Commons
There is also different values in contracts between the four major sports in the United States. The fifth highest paid NHL player is Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Crosby is one of the league’s most prolific players and has won two Stanley Cups in his career.
Photo by: Wikimedia Commons
However, a decent role player in the NBA could easily make what Crosby makes at $15 million per year.
Nicholas Louis, a junior exercise science major at Cabrini, believes that evaluating a player’s worth is tough for a team to determine.
“In most cases an athlete gets paid what their value is but teams hesitate to give them a lot of money because they could mistake their value,” Louis said.
The security of the contracts and players is the largest difference in value between the NFL and NBA. In the NFL, players have control of their contract for the first year and maybe the second year according to Yahoo Sports. Longer contracts in the NFL help the team out, while longer contracts in the NBA help the players out. In the NBA, the players have the control of their contract because if they get a five year deal, it is guaranteed to be five years. That is not the case in the NFL.
“All athletes have worked really hard to get to that point in their career. I believe teams should pay athletes what they deserve based on what they produce or could produce for that team,” Louis said.
