There's no business like sports business

The story is told that when Babe Ruth’s yearly salary exceeded $100,000, a reporter, wondering if salaries had gotten out of hand, pointed out that he was making more than President Calvin Coolidge. Ruth is supposed to have quipped, “I had a better year than he did.”

For sure, $100,000 was out of hand for the time; however, even in today’s dollars, it would be paltry compared to what some athlete’s presently make.

The lunacy of the current situation comes into focus in a May 17 feature in Sports Illustrated tiled “The Fortunate 50.” As the headline promises, the fortunate 50 highest-paid American athletes are listed in order of annual incomes; totals arrived at by adding yearly salaries, winnings and bonuses to endorsements and appearance fees.

Tiger Woods is by far the richest athlete with an income of $76.7 million last year; basketball player Michael Finley is ‘‘mired” in 50th place at $13.8 million. If you earned that much, would it grieve you to be in last place? There are a lot more than 50 millionaire athletes. Sports Illustrated’s top 50 is only the tip of the iceberg.

Tiger Woods’ income doesn’t necessarily mean that all big-time professional golfers are filthy rich; his golf winnings totaled “only” a bit more than $6.6 million, but his endorsements amounted to a whopping $70 million. The only other golfer making the list was Phil Mickelson, in 36th place at $15.8 million, $14 million from endorsements. Golf winnings aren’t tiny, but endorsements seems to be where the real golf money is.

Sports Illustrated points out that 24 of the multimillionaires are professional basketball players, twice as many as baseball players. This doesn’t mean that baseball doesn’t have its fair share of millionaires; however, there are more baseball players to share in the distribution of big dollars, not as many of them reach the lofty top 50 category.

With fewer players in the mix, more NBA players garner superstar incomes, even if all may not necessarily be true superstars. Shaquille O’Neal is in second place at $40.5 million. In third place is another basketball player, LeBron James; his $39 million must make him the richest kid from the high school graduation class of 2003. That’s right, age wise, he should just now be finishing up his freshman year in college. However, he is a professional basketball player with a $4 million salary, the remaining $35 million comes from endorsements. I ask you, is this athletic pay thing out of hand or what?

Only two boxers made the list – Oscar De La Hoya, sixth place at $32 million and Roy Jones Jr., 35th place at $16 million. Two auto racers made the list: Dale Earnhardt, 13th at $22 million, and Jeff Gordon, 21st at $18.6 million. Both rake in the lions share of their incomes from endorsements.

At No. 26 is Lance Armstrong. He made only $460,000 in bicycle racing prize money; $16.5 million is from endorsements. This seems to indicate that to get rich from bicycle racing, publicity had best create a superstar who is in demand for endorsements.

Only four football players made the list, which is understandable. Professional football teams have even more players than baseball.

An unfortunate sign of the times is that only two women were in the top 50, and they are the tennis-playing Williams sisters. Serena Williams is 23rd; $15 million of her $17.5 million income in from endorsements. No. 41 Venus Williams makes $14 million of her $15 million via endorsements.

One male tennis player, Andre Agassi, was in seventh place, with $27 million from endorsements.

Things are out of hand indeed, and will likely stay that way as long as fans continue to underwrite them by buying the tickets and products athletes endorse.