Those Damn Richers

So the National Hockey Player's Association (or as Jon Stewart calls them, "NAMBLA") made their offer to the NHL. There was one major change, a move that shows that the players are willing to salvage part of the season. They offered a rollback on their salaries of 24%. That's major.

When the highest paid player finds that his yearly checkbook will be 2.64 million dollars smaller, it says that the league needed to be saved. There are players who have expressed their surprise at such a high rollback. Some, downright upset.

But hey, you're part of a union. And when you decided to give the negotiating right to your representatives, I guess your pouting is justified, right?

The highest paid player in the NHL is Jaromir Jagr at $11 mil. That's just the NHL. ARod's at $23 million. Kobe just got that ridiculous contract, even in the midst of that whole court ordeal. And I don't mean the basketball court. And his wife is wishing she got more than that purple rock. Just to keep comparing egos by the way, Shaq's at 29 million. Peyton Manning got a 34.5 million dollar bonus...a SIGNING BONUS. Real Madrid (a soccer team) paid 41 million to obtain David Beckham (Posh Spice's husband as most of you may know him). That was just to obtain him! Beckham makes approximately $28 million a year (Forbes).

So hockey isn't filled with overpaid punks. They deserve more, right? After all, they work hard for ten months out of the year in one of the most physically demanding sports, and their careers usually last about 10-15 years. They need the larger contracts to last them their lifetime. After all, decades later, social security probably won't be terribly reliable then.

Fans look at these contracts and throw no sympathy towards the players. There's no surprise there. But in the case of the NHL's lockout situation, it seems that fans forget who's on the other end of the negotiating table--the owners. It's just my guess, a guess of a non-math person mind you, that the owners are probably worth more than their entire team's salary. Otherwise, they probably wouldn't go and own the team, now would they? Hockey owners join the other sports' leagues' whiners, who say that salaries are getting out of control.
Maybe they should put a post-it on their keyboard, a note on their fridge, or even go far as to write a message on their foreheads backwards so they can read in the mirror: "I am responsible for my checkbook."