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Published on Leave a comment on Super Bowl Bonuses: Going Green

A previous version of this post first appeared in 2016.

I blogged previously about the history of some of the world championship hardware teams earn when they win a championship. I promised to follow up with the real reason all those players are smiling as they hoist those trophies: their financial bonuses.

According to various sources, the winners of Super Bowl L (50, but as a former Latin student, I'm going old school there) won $97,000.00 each. That's right. Every player on the Denver Broncos roster earned more for winning that game than many people earn in a year. The Panthers each received $49,000.00 for losing it. That will pay for a lot of tissues for wiping away the tears on the plane ride home.

2015 Super Bowl bling

Ninety-seven grand is very grand indeed, but here's the kicker (pun intended): the Super Bowl bonus is literally pocket change for most of the players. The average player salary in the NFL is over $2 million per year. The regular season consists of 16 games, so that works out to about $125,000.00 per game. Teams who reach the Super Bowl have also received bonuses every time they advance in the post-season, so the total bonus take for the champs is closer to $165,000.00 per player. That doesn't include the ring each player will receive after several months of design and manufacture. The rings for the 2015 champs, the New England Patriots, are valued at $36,500.00 each.

Salaries are just the tip of the income iceberg for many professional athletes. Endorsements are where the real money is. Peyton Manning is not only the master of the endorsements game. He's an expert in product placement. Some estimate his mention of Budweiser products in his post-game interviews to be worth billions to the company, which trickles back down to him in the form of profits at the two Anheuser-Busch distributorships in which he owns a stake. And that doesn't even include the Papa John's and Nationwide contracts and his latest entertainment ventures. (Come to think of it, I'm surprised he didn't deliver part of his canned Super Bowl speech to the tune of the Nationwide jingle.) Estimates of the elder Manning's annual endorsement income is $12,000,000.00. That's twelve million if all those zeroes are starting to make your eyes spin. Remember, that's on top of his 5-year, $96 million contract for actually playing football. That's just over $19 million per year, so it's more than the endorsements, but with the endorsements, 350-lb linemen are not threatening to separate your head from your shoulders on every play.

Is it me, or doesn't Grange favor Manning just the tiniest bit?

In the early years, football players were paid per game. Player salaries fluctuated wildly based on perceived skill as well as the budgets of the various teams. The first player to play under season-long contract was Red Grange in 1926. He was paid $100,000.00 for a 19 game season with the Chicago Bears. That may not seem like much compared to the numbers I was throwing around earlier. It's certainly less than what many players earn per game today. But factoring in inflation over the last 90 years, that works out to about $1,300,000.00 in today's money. Not bad, considering he had to wear a helmet that looks like it was inspiration for a Coneheads skit.

The players union made progress in standardizing salaries starting in the 1970s. Thanks to the popularity of the game, broadcast rights, ticket prices, and licensing revenue, there's a lot of green to go around for the players who get the hooey knocked out of them every Sunday for our entertainment. From the look of their celebration dances (and their bank account balances), they're enjoying it as much as we are.

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Published on 2 Comments on Sports Trophies: The Golden (or Silver) Goal

A version of this post was originally published in 2016.

It’s the final game of the season. The clock winds down. The whistle blows, the buzzer sounds, time runs out, and it’s over: one team wins it all. Along with the excitement and glory of finishing first, winning teams often receive a trophy to honor their achievement. For professional teams, the trophies are often beautiful works of art and quite valuable. Some have colorful histories every bit as exciting as the contests they honor.

Dirk Nowitzki posing with the O'Brien trophy.The Dallas Mavericks won the title in 2011.

Youth sports team members often receive individual trophies when their teams win a tournament or championship. But the trophies for professional sports are much too expensive for one to be made for each player (although some sports like baseball and football sometimes give each player a fancy ring to wear instead). Instead, one trophy is given to the entire team. The Larry O’Brien Trophy is given each year to the winner of the National Basketball Association series winner. Standing two feet tall and weighing sixteen pounds, the gold plated figure looks like a basketball about to fall into a net (or a fancy garbage can, if you're feeling less charitable toward basketball).  A new one is made for each year’s winning team. The NBA first awarded a team trophy in 1978. It was renamed for a former NBA commissioner in 1984.

Attractive, but looks rather fragile IMO. There should be bats. Wooden, not blood-sucking.

The Commissioner’s Trophy goes to the winner of baseball’s World Series. Like the O’Brien Trophy, a new trophy is made each year. Made of sterling silver but covered with a gold plating, the Commissioner’s Trophy features thirty flags representing each of the major league baseball teams. It is two feet tall and weighs about thirty pounds. The first Commissioner’s Trophy was given in 1967.

The Vince Lombardi Super Bowl Trophy is also made each year for the best professional football team. It is a sterling silver trophy about the same size as the basketball and baseball trophies. It features a full-size football perched atop a silver column.

It's been far too long since the Cowboys earned one of these *sniff*.The Lombardi Trophy is nice, but I'm all about the bling.

Some sports don’t make a new trophy each year. Instead, there is a single trophy. The winning team gets to keep the trophy for the year they are the champions. Soccer’s FIFA World Cup trophy is given to the winner of the World Cup competition. Like the Olympics, soccer’s World Cup is held every four years. Soccer has a rich history. Its original trophy was designed in 1930. Known as the Jules Rimet Cup, it was about 14 inches high. It featured a base made of blue stone, supporting a gold woman’s winged figure with a cup above her.

The FIFA World Cup Trophy aka the Rimet Cup

The Rimet Cup led an exciting life. During World War II as German troops marched across Europe, an Italian soccer federation official hid the trophy in a shoe box under his bed to keep it from falling into enemy hands. In 1966, the trophy disappeared while on display in England. It was later found buried near a tree, dug up by an enterprising dog named Pickles. The FIFA trophy disappeared again in 1983 while in the possession of the Brazil team. It was never found and is assumed to have been melted down by the thieves.  

When the original FIFA trophy disappeared, it was not the only soccer trophy in existence. After Brazil had won the World Cup for the third time in 1970, they won the right to keep the trophy forever. FIFA ordered a new trophy made for subsequent winners. The new trophy was called the FIFA World Cup Trophy and the trophy rules were changed at that time. The trophy was no longer given to the winning team. Instead, the original trophy stayed with FIFA and replicas were given to the winning teams. The 1974 design is about 14 inches tall, made of 18-carat gold with a green stone base. It features two figures standing with arms upraised, embracing the globe.  The trophy is engraved with the names of past winners.

Andrew Shaw enjoying the moment when the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup in 2013, bloody face notwithstanding. Hockey players are tough.

Hockey’s trophy also has a colorful history. The hockey trophy is known as the Stanley Cup, named for Lord Stanley, Earl of Preston, one of the game’s early supporters. The first Stanley Cup was awarded in 1892. It was not designed by an artist or sculptor – Lord Stanely just went out and bought a silver cup for the princely sum of $50. It resembled the bowl-like piece atop today’s trophy. Winners’ names were simply scratched into the silver with a knife or a nail. The original cup is now on display at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

From 1890-1930 thick silver bands were added to the base of the cup to accommodate more winners’ names. The trophy underwent some changes, but eventually came to its modern form in 1958. It is by far the largest of the major sports trophies, at three feet tall and about 35 pounds. The largest silver bands, or rings, that make up the base take thirteen years to fill with the names of the winners. Once a ring is filled, it is removed and sent to the Hall of Fame for safekeeping. It is replaced with a blank ring and the process begins again.  

The Stanley Cup is given to the winning team for the year they are champions. Each team member is allowed to take the trophy home for one day to share with friends and family. This has resulted in some interesting adventures for the cup while it is in private hands, including being drop-kicked onto the frozen Rideau Canal during a post-championship celebration in Ottawa.

Despite wars, thieves, and enthusiastic athletes, these trophies from the world of sports hold great meaning for the fans and players of the game. Hoisted aloft, glittering in the glare of camera flashes, they truly represent the fun and excitement of winning. That's all well and good, but in my next post which btw is just in time for the Super Bowl, I'll explain why they're really smiling by sharing with you the amount of money the players earn when their team becomes league champion.

Handy size comparison. FIFA trophy is not shown, but would be the smallest of the five.

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Published on 2 Comments on Bowling For Dollars

Some Broncos fan worked hard to carve that snow in the background

When I was a kid growing up in Dallas, Texas, there was a show on television called Bowling For Dollars. I rarely watched it as bowling was not super popular at my house. But somehow the name of the show stuck with me. I find it a handy metaphor for situations where people are trying to earn money, sports-related or otherwise. As time has passed, it has inadvertently circled back to a literal meaning when bowl season rolls around (see what I did there?).

When I watch a sporting event of any kind, my brain kicks into History Mode and I start thinking about its prehistoric precursors. Competition springs from our deepest survival instincts. We no longer have to run for our lives from saber-toothed tigers. But some of us still have incredible physical skills designed for survival. Technology has outrun evolution. The only hunting most of us do is digging through the sale bin at the local Piggly Wiggly. So instead of Usain Bolt chasing deer on foot, he chases world records. He runs fast for the same reason: to outrun whatever or whomever is chasing him. He probably still feels an incredible sense of relief and accomplishment when he succeeds. But today his prize is a paycheck. His prehistoric counterparts had to settle for not being eaten alive.

It's also human nature to want to watch.  We want to see feats of greatness. Some part of our dinosaur brain wants to see the train wrecks, too, bless our hearts. We want to see the outcome, the drama. Sports is a world-wide, multi-billion dollar industry built on the most basic of human instincts. And long ago, someone figured out people will pay to watch. The Greeks had their Olympics. The Romans had their gladiators. Aztecs had their wacky, tongue-twisting soccer/basketball hybrid, ullamaliztli. Medieval knights jousted. Men sailed and jumped and ran and wrestled and swam and fought. And, sporting short-sleeved shirts and crew cuts on a small, snowy black and white TV screen, they bowled.

The TVs have changed (thank goodness). Some of the haircuts have changed. The 'bowling' has changed. The paydays certainly have changed. But it still all boils down to the same thing: some people wanting to prove they're better than the other people. And we still like to watch them prove it.

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