This blog post is a rant, but not the kind of rant that High Plains Blogger readers have come to expect … and some of whom actually like to read from little ol’ me.
This one deals with sports writing and the special expertise that has become evident in the facts that reporters have to possess. They need master’s degrees in business administration to report accurately on the comings and goings of pro athletes, on the decisions made on where they pursue their craft … and the huge amount of money they earn while hitting a baseball, shooting a basketball or tossing a football and tackling those who do.
I must restrict this blog to just men’s sports, because that is where the money issue is spiraling into outer space.
I was reading recently about the Dallas Cowboys’ decision to trade defensive lineman Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers. I cannot even begin to recite the terms of the trade, because it soared way over my pointed noggin. I saw terms like “salary cap,” and “franchise tag” and assorted other rhetoric that made the facts of the trade totally foreign to me. I don’t even know the sticking points that made the Cowboys dicker for the trade, other than I presume Parsons wanted more money than the Cowboys were willing to pay.
Whatever …
This is just the latest such story that goes way over my head.
I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s when it was a huge deal to read about a pro baseball athlete earning 100 grand a year. Stan Musial was the first, I think, to crack that barrier. Then came Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron. Who else? I remember when quarterback Joe Namath signed with the AFL’s New York Jets for $400,000. You would’ve thought the planet had just spun off its axis.
It’s all chump change these days when we talk about that bygone era.
As for sports writers who have cover these issues for anyone with an interest in the amount of money that goes to these people, they now must bring financial expertise to be able to boil it all down to the lowest possible level. They used to tell us to write our stories so that a fifth grader can understand it.
Does a child actually understand the wealth that pro athletes command?
