COMMENTARY : Athletes’ Salaries: How Far Off Is the Billion-Dollar Man?

In the year 2000, Barry Sanders asks the Detroit Lions for a three-year, $12-million contract and gets it. To keep Sandy Alomar Jr., the Cleveland Indians give him $20 million over four years. And David Robinson settles with the San Antonio Spurs for $50 million over five years.

Believe it--or not?

“I always used to say to myself, if I could negotiate a $100,000-a-year contract, that would be something,” sports attorney Bob Woolf said. “I did that in 1968 with Ken Harrelson. Then it was $1 million a year. I did that in 1976 with Otis Birdsong.

“So, what’s the next plateau? How about a $1-billion player?”

Just kidding. But consider the following:

- Last August, Woolf negotiated a contract for Larry Bird that will pay him more than $6 million in the 1990-91 season with the Boston Celtics. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Patrick Ewing and Michael Jordan have broken the $3-million barrier.

“You ask, ‘How high is up?’ I really think that by the end of the next decade, there’ll be a $10-million player, and I may be shortchanging myself,” Woolf said.

- Six baseball players--Kirby Puckett, Rickey Henderson, Mark Langston, Mark Davis, Joe Carter and Robin Yount--have $3-million contracts. In 1980, Nolan Ryan became baseball’s first $1-million player when he went to the Houston Astros.

“Am I worth it? I don’t know,” Puckett said. “But I know one thing: If they didn’t have it to give to you, you sure wouldn’t get it.”

- Warren Moon broke the $2-million barrier in the NFL this year. John Elway and Troy Aikman are on the cusp, and just 10 years ago, O. J. Simpson was the highest-paid player in the league at $600,000. Atlanta Falcons offensive tackle Mike Kenn makes almost that much now.

“I’d just like to see a little more equitable distribution of the money,” Kenn said. “I mean, you can have a $150,000-a-year offensive lineman blocking a $1.5-million defensive lineman so he won’t get to a $2-million quarterback. Does that seem fair?”

- Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux lead the NHL’s march toward the 21st Century at a little more than $2 million apiece. Ten years ago, Marcel Dionne was the league’s highest-paid player at $350,000.

“Of course, we’re the little guys on the block,” NHL union chief Alan Eagleson said.

- Sugar Ray Leonard made an estimated $30 million in 1989 from two fights, one with Thomas Hearns that paid him about $13 million and another with Roberto Duran that will pay him $17 million to $18 million. That made him the first fighter in history to earn $100 million in lifetime purses. Muhammad Ali’s biggest payday was $8 million against Larry Holmes in 1980, and that gave him $60 million for his career.

“Some day, they’ll say: ‘Poor Sugar Ray Leonard. He came along too soon. The most he ever made for a fight was $20 million,’ ” promoter Bob Arum said.

In the past decade, the average salary in the NFL has gone from about $80,000 to $300,000, according to the union. Major league baseball’s average salary has gone from $143,756 to $497,254, the players association says. The NBA average, which started the decade between $170,000 and $180,000, is at $750,000 now and will go to $1 million in 1990-91 because of a new TV contract. The NHL average in 1980 was about $90,000; now, it’s $220,000, Eagleson said.

Are front-office executives worried? Sure. That’s their job.

“What you’re talking about eventually is taking all your income and paying it to the players,” Minnesota Vikings General Manager Mike Lynn said. “If we continue at the rate we’ve gone for the next three years, we’ll double our salaries, and that will equal or exceed our total revenue.”

That assumes, however, that revenues stay the same, and that’s not been the history of team sports in America.

Major league baseball’s gross revenues went from about $350 million in 1980 to $1.1 billion last year. The NFL went from $415 million to $1.1 billion. The NBA went from $110 million to $370 million, and the NHL went from about $100 million to $330 million.

At the box office, the maximum price for a Celtics ticket 10 years ago was $12. Now it’s $32. The Dodgers’ ticket range in 1980 was $2 to $4.50; now it’s $5 to $9. San Francisco 49ers tickets were $5 to $12 in 1980, and now they’re $25 for all seats.

“How much more expensive can it get at the gate? Who knows?” baseball agent Richie Bry said. “But it’s not hard to conceive of a $20 baseball ticket. I mean, the poor fan is paying 50 cents more for a loaf of bread, a half a buck more for a hamburger. Why should anything else be different?”

Although attendances are up in most sports and commercialism has added millions of dollars to the pot, television has had the greatest influence on spiraling salaries and revenues.

“As long as television continues to devour sports--and I see no evidence that it won’t--salaries will keep going up,” said Bry, who negotiated Henderson’s $3-million baseball contract.

The NBA, for example, just negotiated a four-year, $600-million contract with NBC, five times the value of its old contract with CBS. Baseball is getting $1.1 billion over four years from CBS, and the NFL is in the process of negotiating a contract to replace its $1.3-billion, three-year deal. The NHL made a $51-million, three-year deal with SportsChannel America, more than doubling its old ESPN deal.

This seems to be the bottom line: If owners can pay, they will; if they can’t, they won’t.

“The whole thing is incredible,” Woolf said. “When I did Larry Bird’s original contract, I asked for $6 million for six years, and everybody thought I was crazy, like this was the most outrageous suggestion in the world. Ten years later, we’re talking about $6 million in one year.”

Jennifer Capriati, 13-year-old tennis prodigy from Lauderhill, Fla., won’t make her pro debut until March, but she’s already signed endorsement contracts worth about $1 million a year.

Believe it--or not?