There have been multiple threads about the incredibly high salaries afforded professional athletes. I’d like to veer from the normal discussion about how much players are paid and instead focus on this the idea that
the more highly paid a player is, the less content he might be with his contract. This idea is highlighted by the following quote from a WaPo article (sourced below) about star MLB player Bryce Harper:
“..as [Bryce Harper] continues to make more money and get closer to free agency, he accumulates more cash, and an extension that pays him less than open-market value is less appealing.” (emphasis my own).
To sum up the logic used here, the more money a player has, the less likely he is to sign a long-term deal because he might not be paid as much with his current team because he might get more as a free agent.
As I was reading this I realized that is exactly opposite of how most people here might act. As we achieve FI (and in superstars' worlds - blow right by FI to achieve multi-millionare status) we choose jobs based independently on money. Instead, what we do and where we live becomes more important.
For background, Bryce Harper is very young (23) and the 2015 league MVP. He’s often talked about wanting to play for a single team his whole career, and gives Cal Ripken Jr and Derek Jeter as examples he lives by By MLB’s standards he’s very inexpensive for the caliber player that he is, having earned $2.5MM in 2015 and he has a guaranteed $5MM for 2016. At the close of next season he will have made a minimum of $15.6MM in 6 years. Estimates for what it would take to keep Harper with the Nationals range (to quote WaPo):
from relatively conservative (six years, $180 million) to breathtakingly astronomical (15 years, $450 million with an opt-out for Harper).But to get back to the topic at hand, the ruling sports-logic now seems to be that because he already has a lot of money, he’s less likely to take any deal without entering the free market unless it guarantees more than any hitter has ever earned per season (the most conservative estimate was $35MM per year over multiple seasons). Ironically, there’s almost universal agreement that the nationals could not sign an 6 year contract extension right now for $120MM in part because he doesn’t need the money.
Or, to put it another way, because he doesn’t need the money, several analysts think he is most likely to wind up with an organization like the Yankees simply because they can pay him the most money that he doesn’t need.
Harper certainly isn't the only one, and I'm betting egos are the biggest driver here. But I can't think of any examples of a current or recent sports superstar saying
"you know, I've already made tens of millions of dollars - I'm set for life. I'm going to choose where to play the remainder of my career based on some factors other than money." Just once I'd like to hear a guy say
"well other teams have offered me an extra $5MM a year to play for them, but my kids have friends here and we really dig this town, and I'm still being paid several million each year to play here so why would I leave?"feel free to add your own opinions below.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2015/11/19/what-bryce-harpers-next-contract-could-be-worth/
