A Grip on Sports: Every once in a while a dollar figure just blows your socks off, even when you’re wearing sandals
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Things I would do if I had $10 billion? Disappear, possibly. Maybe purchase a Dunkin’ Donut franchise for the back yard. Things I wouldn’t do with $10 billion? Buy the Lakers. Or any other professional sports franchise. Well, maybe the Mariners. I mean, c’mon. Being the guy who brought a World Series title to the Pacific Northwest would get you on the region’s Mount Rushmore, wouldn’t it?
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• Right next to Bigfoot, Pete Carroll and the Space Needle. It sure would be nice to have my head chiseled on the thing, replacing that FBI drawing of D.B. Cooper.
Come to think of it, though, Paul Allen’s profile has sort of faded from memory and only a few of you could blurt out “Sam Schulman” if asked who owned the Sonics in their glory days.
Maybe investing in the M’s wouldn’t be worth the money. At least not $10 billion. Probably not even $5 billion. Or $3. If John Stanton et al want to sell the club to me for $2 billion, we could make a deal. As long as they vacate the premises at least 10 days before the trade deadline.
It’s just a fantasy, though, isn’t it? Just like the Buss family selling the Los Angeles Lakers to Mark Walter, the Dodgers’ lead owner, for $10 billion. It can’t be real, can it? I mean, even Everett Dirksen would consider $10 billion real money. (And if you know who that is, you probably knew Schulman back in the day.)
Heck, so would Taylor Swift, who has yet to consider buying the Kansas City Chiefs, despite already owning the franchise’s heart and soul.
It’s silly, isn’t it? Here we are, as a society, debating cutting this and that out of government social programs, saving a million here and a million there by firing thousands of people, and one guy finds $10 billion in his couch cushions. Then decides he’ll spend it on a basketball team. A basketball team that can’t guard a light pole.
At least Walter could have spent the money on Oklahoma City. And then moved the franchise back to Seattle. That would get him a Northwest Rushmore spot for sure.
I bring this up not because I ever expect to have $10 billion. Or anything within the same galaxy of $10 billion. I’m not sure anyone reading this will either – unless they are in Jeff Bezos’ will or something. But money seems to be a big part of every sport these days, doesn’t it? More so than anytime I can remember. And I can remember a long time ago.
The first time money became a focal point in sports, personally, was back in 1966. When Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale held out, trying to get the Dodgers to pay them $100,000 each. I was 9-years-old and thought $100,000 was, well, $10 billion. Or near that. My understanding of the difference has grown since.
Thirteen years later Dr. Jerry Buss parlayed his real-estate-built fortune into ownership of the Lakers, Kings and the Forum, spending $67.5 million for the privilege. It seemed to this guy, who was in the process of selling his precious TR-6 to finance all those things one needs to have after an August marriage ceremony, to be an outrageous sum. It turned out to be nothing more than a great investment.
Still, such headlines were outliers. These days it’s expected. Even in so-called “amateur” sports.
Who would have thought back in ’79 $67.5 million wouldn’t be enough money in 2025 to fund the region’s FBS schools’ athletic programs? Or to buy a half-a-season of a bat for the local MLB team?
It isn’t. Heck, one-tenth of what Walter is dropping on the Lakers hardly buys a great baseball player in free agency. At least the one you could buy in the last offseason for that amount. And he’s not even very good at running the bases.
So much of our daily sports bread revolves around finances. The CFO has become more important than the GM or AD or HC or PITS (People In The Stands). At all levels.
Where does it end? It doesn’t. If Jay-Z and Swifty and Rihanna are all worth a billion dollars or more, why should athletes be any different? And it only stands to reason the franchises that employ them, professionally or quasi-professionally – we’re looking at you college football – should be worth even more.
The almighty dollar isn’t just mighty anymore. It is the basis of all. Even in the sports pages.
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WSU: You have a good memory for former NFL players? Then the latest Washington State football recruit Greg Woods covers in this story will ring a bell. Receiver Maurice Purify II. Yep, his dad played in the NFL for years. … Speaking of money – and we did a lot of that above – Jon Wilner takes his best, well-educated guess at what the Pac-12’s new media deal will entail, from dollars to the sensibility of emphasizing exposure. … We have another story about that to pass along. … Elsewhere in the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, Washington has to determine how it will spend its $20.5 million in player pay by sport. Pat Chun said yesterday he knows where the money will go – five sports will get the bulk of it – but he’s not sharing the particulars with anyone. … By the way, recruiting never stops or the Husky football program. Same for Oregon softball. … Can the Ducks return to the CFP? … Colorado State rings a bell whenever it has a football recruit in house. … Utah State is a little quieter. … The Colorado football game with visiting Wyoming has already sold out. … Arizona State is upping the ante with football seating, putting together a premium season ticket package that costs $20 thousand. … Arizona has set a goal of winning five Big 12 titles across all sports within the next five years. … In baseball news, Oregon State’s sad ending is mitigated somewhat by a great season and hope for the future. … San Diego State introduced its new coach. … Coastal Carolina and LSU will face off for the College World Series title. … In basketball news, Colorado began prepping for its offseason trip to Australia. And knows the date for its game with Colorado State. … No one is quite sure how the new payment rules will impact foreign players. … Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd and his family are busy.
EWU and Idaho: Around the Big Sky, we shared the news Sacramento State would be leaving the conference after the upcoming year. It became official yesterday as the Hornets’ hierarchy explained what’s ahead for the school’s athletic programs, including football. … The decision will impact the rest of the conference as well. … Northern Arizona has added a transfer to its women’s basketball roster.
Preps: A few weeks ago we linked a story about a national prep circuit basketball program slated to begin in the fall in Liberty Lake. Since then Dave Nichols has been delving into the subject, leading to this story. It takes a lot of money – that word again – to put together such a program.
Indians: Dave also has coverage of Spokane’s latest loss. The Indians’ seventh consecutive one. The latest came Wednesday at Avista, 9-3 to Everett, which moved into a tie with Vancouver for the Northwest League’s first-half title. One game remains.
Chiefs: The Spokane Jr. Chiefs Hockey Club is under a new director. That news leads off the S-R’s latest local briefs column.
UFC: Spokane’s MMA strawweight Melissa Amaya is unbeaten. She will fight tonight in Miami in Combate Female’s main event. As Charlotte McKinley tells us, it will be different than any of her other seven bouts. She had to prepare for a new opponent in just a couple days and her husband and family will be there to watch. For the first time.
Mariners: Garrett Crochet is one of the favorites to win the American League Cy Young as the season nears the halfway point. The M’s can’t really argue, considering they scored just one time against the Red Sox left Wednesday afternoon. And that came on a wild pitch. Seattle lost the game 3-1 and lost the series to Boston. … Julio Rodriguez has changed his approach some and it has worked for him.
Kraken: If the Panthers’ Stanley Cup celebration seemed different this year, that’s because it actually was.
Sonics: The Thunder can put the NBA title away with a win in tonight’s game six in Indianapolis. The big question? Will Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton play, and play well, with a calf injury?
Storm: We linked this Candace Buckner column on Caitlin Clark yesterday when it ran in the Washington Post. It is on the S-R site today. …There is a bunch of coverage from that contentious game between the Fever and Sun, most of it focused on the WNBA’s issues with officiating. And some on the ensuing fallout for the players.
Sounders: Seattle faces a must-win Club World Cup match tonight at Lumen Field.
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• Sorry about the financial talk today. But $10 billion? That blew my socks off. And I don’t even wear socks often in the summer. It’s just so much cash it reinforced a truism that needs mentioning from time to time. All of your questions can be answered with one word. Money. Until later …