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 Sports' First Millionaires

                                                      Mike DiPatri           02/12/04 

I can't believe how much money professional ball players make.  They sure aren't like the players of old.  You never saw anyone make a million dollars or more. 

Surely everyone has heard somebody make these comments.  Usually it's the members of an older generation who never even heard of a million dollars back then.  A comparison of the salaries of players in the thirties in today's dollars indicates that those players were really sports' first millionaires.  

One of the highest paid players during that time was Lou Gehrig at $36,000.  That equates to $1,880,000.  Others were Bill Terry at $30,000 ($1,560,000), Dizzy Dean at $25,500 ($1,330,000), Bill Dickey at $18,000 ($940,000) and Mel Ott at $17,500 ($914,000).  Babe Ruth's salary was in the $30,000 range; down from the $80,000 he made in the twenties.  That figure would be $3,500,000 today.

It's true that teams throw around tremendous amounts of money these days.  Don't fault the players, though.  If that's what the job pays, why not take it?  I surely would not tell my boss that he?s paying me too much.  Major League Baseball revenue is incredible.  Consider a team that draws two million fans in a season.  The least expensive seat in the park is at least $10.  That would be over $20,000,000 just in ticket sales.  True, the operation of the facility is a large cost, but we're just talking about income from ticket sales.  There's also income from television deals and sales of licensed team items just to name a couple more sources of revenue.  These companies (the teams) make very high income from their business.  Payroll for their primary employees should be relative to that income.

People go to ball games to see the players play.  They go there by the millions each year.  They don't go to just sit in a stadium.  So, if the players bring in the fans and generate a major part of the team's income, shouldn't they get paid accordingly?

Ball players today are paid more than any player before.  Even so, the players seventy years ago made the equivalent of a million dollars.  That's hard for a lot of people to grasp because they look merely at figures instead of how economic times have changed.  Of course people wonder why a classic car like a brand new 1957 Chevrolet cost them only $1700.00 and cars today cost over $20,000.  They won't consider that the $1700 they paid in 1957 would be $23,600 today.  Today's dollar just isn't what it used to be.  Even considering the comparison of yesterday's players to today's, their salaries were not on a par with modern players.  If a player today is worth $20,000,000 a year now, shouldn't Lou Gehrig be worth more than the $1.8 million he got?  Still, a simple look at their salaries in today?s dollars would indicate that these players of yesterday were really sports' first millionaires.