Players Not Only Ones Getting Rich

Funny how some get angry at the smallest things that cause little, if any, discomfort. Watch the sparks fly when someone sees a parking ticket on his Mercedes windshield, or when the morning paper arrives soggy from overnight rain, or anytime there’s more than five people in line at the express counter, or when you reach for the plate and discover the last muffin has been taken.

The surest way to tick someone off now? Tell them another baseball player just signed for $15 million a season.

The sports pages might as well be the business section these days. The hot-stove league just turned a billion dollars. In the NBA, players moan about an industry that pays an average of $2.6 million.

You see all that money being made by those who have nothing besides athletic ability, and it makes you cringe.

But here’s what’s odd: The rich athlete is scorned while everyone else making zillions in the sports world is spared the public’s wrath.

Plenty of folks in this business have seen their fortunes quadruple - in part because of athletes. In most cases, their jobs are decidedly easier.

Coaches. This profession suddenly reeks of millionaires. Packages can run well beyond $1 million a year at top Division I schools. Rick Pitino signed for $7 million a season last year, the same week Larry Brown moved from the Pacers to the Sixers for more money and a former legendary player, Larry Bird, felt the urge to coach again. For what? Money. Get ready for the same trend in football. After Terrell Davis awarded him with a Super Bowl, Denver coach Mike Shanahan was showered again, this time by Broncos owner Pat Bowlen with a three-year contract extension and a salary exceeding $2.4 million a season.

Broadcasters. Never have so many, who think what they do is so complex, been paid so much. Fox spent $1 million just for the rights to Keith Olbermann. It takes a special talent to smirk his way through highlights, you know. The Monday Night Football gang works 17 nights a year (plus exhibitions, playoffs and the Pro Bowl), gets paid well into and beyond six figures, and gets limoed separately to and from games.

Agents. David Falk reportedly made $30 million negotiating contracts last year and recently sold his company for about $100 million in cash and stock. And will someone please do the math on Scott Boras’ commissions?

Commissioners. David Stern makes $8 million a year, which puts him in the company of his league’s superstars, and he isn’t restricted by a cap. Here’s a shock, though: Russ Granik, the deputy commish, makes well over a million a year. That makes him the best-paid executive backup in any league.

General managers. Jerry West’s flirtation with retirement forced the hand of Lakers owner Jerry Buss. A good guess: In his new deal, West pulls down more in one year as a general manager than he did his entire career as a player.

Mascots. In his heydey, the Chicken didn’t exactly make a poultry sum. A million a year, easy. And one fuzzy creature, who must remain nameless, once proudly revealed he made more than the 12th man on the team he worked for. The benchwarmer was only at $150,000.

The Waterboy. On the basis of a $39 million opening week, Adam Sandler catapulted into the $20 million-per-picture club, and his dimwit-becomes-a-football-star movie wasn’t even funny.

So, if money-bashing’s your thing, maybe it’s only fair you consider the entire industry, not just a few parts.

Just don’t include sportswriters in the mix.