Odd Sports Contracts
I’ve had an odd fascination with sports contracts lately, so here are some of my favorite nuggets:
- The LA Rams like to give their players palindromes for salaries simply because the lead contract negotiator thinks it’s fun. Tavon Austin’s contract is worth $10,555,501 a year. Center John Sullivan received a 1-year, $999,999 contract (GFS no Dos Comas for you). They also presented a contract to a player in haiku form once.
- Eddie Lacy’s contract in Seattle includes a 7-part healthy living incentive structure. By weighing in below 250 at his first check-in, he earned $55,000. The remainder of the health-based part of the contract is worth another $330,000.
- Daisuke Matsuzaka got a personal masseuse in his contract with the Red Sox.
- George Brett received 10% of a Memphis apartment complex as part of of a 1984 deal with the Kansas City Royals in 1984.
- Just before game 6 of the NCLS in 2005, the Houston Astros offered Roy Oswalt a bulldozer if he won the game, which he did.
These are all fun, but Bobby Bonilla is the real king. He was acquired by the Mets from the Pirates as a young, rising star. Once in New York, proceeded to forget how to play baseball and build a lot of animosity with the fans and the media. It didn’t take them long to get rid of them. Once he left, he got back on the right track and kept improving. This turned out to be a real okie doke once the Mets gave him a second chance.
“Everything’s always a gamble when you take chances.”
— Bobby Bonilla
He played form 1998 to 2001 in his second stint, in which he was once again disappointing. He is still a burden to the New York Mets, even though he hasn’t played baseball since 2001, he is still cashing in big time. When the Mets cut him in 2001, they owed him $5.9 million. They wanted to use that money other assets (which ended up getting them to the World Series), so they agreed to a deferred compensation contract. Under this structure, they pay Bonilla in installments that have an 8% annual interest rate. Every July 1 since 2011, he gets paid over $1 million. Altogether, when he gets his last paycheck from the Mets in 2035, they will have paid him almost $30 million after his departure — more than half as much as he made as an actual player.
Why did this seem like a good idea? Well, the Mets owners were making 12% or more on their investments in the stock market thanks to the man himself …
Bernie Madoff. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that investing the 5.9 bills with Madoff at the time of the contract would end up as a $49 million profit after paying Bonilla his money. Sounds solid. GG Mets.
