It’s a Lot of Money, but Is It a Lot of Fun?

It is the practice every week of the Sporting News to offer what it calls its “baseball letters,” amounting to brief reports from correspondents with each of the 26 teams in the majors.

Inspecting the reports in the current issue, you find that all 12 on the National League involve money, as it relates to players and management.

In the American League, 11 of the 14 reports deal with money. The three excluded are Baltimore, Seattle and Kansas City, leading you to believe nothing more is to be discussed about money at those stations, where they may have run out of it.

The subject of money is so all-consuming in sports today that the follower, a romantic making his escape from earthly events, has no place to hide. He is bombarded with money matters connected with the principals. It comes at him in his automobile, where he listens to news; at his desk, where he reads it, and in his home, where he watches it.

The problem is irreversible because it is real. A prisoner of sports finance, the fan observes grimly, “I’m in for life.”

Not long ago, Notre Dame comes into the news. And what’s the occasion? It announces it is going into business for itself in television, signing a contract said to be worth $40 million. This brings into the news the College Football Assn., complaining that Notre Dame’s bagging the money means money out of the pockets of the CFA.

Next heard from are the college football undergraduates, who can’t wait to get their hands on pro money after four years in school.

They want it after three.

The schools reject this proposition because players defecting can cost the schools money. Their teams blow games, damaging ticket sales and jeopardizing bowl bids.

Pro basketball rolls into the news. Its commissioner signs a five-year contract, averaging out, with bonus, at a reported $3.5 million a year.

“That’s a lot for commissioning,” one says to oneself. “Why would the owners go for such a load?”

The reason is that under the commissioner’s leadership, money never has poured into the NBA as it does now. Franchise values have appreciated so dramatically that the owners conclude, “If we don’t cut in this guy, we don’t have a conscience.”

I mean, it once is felt that the man who buys the Clippers for $12 million buys water that has benzene. Today, the Clippers may be worth $70 million.

Baseball players and owners have been at war, resulting in a lockout. Need you be reminded of the chief commodity involved in the argument?

On March 11, National Football League owners have scheduled a meeting in Orlando, Fla., to decide, among other things, a location for the Super Bowl game of 1993.

Owners will interview the applicants, learning how cheap the league can get the stadium, how much of the concessions and the parking it can capture, how much of the souvenir heist it can grab.

Also to be considered will be parking lot space, which the league will rent to corporations wishing to pitch tents for entertaining.

“Hey,” a fan will holler, “while you’re renting that space, where do you expect us to park?”

“You will have a chauffeur,” the league will answer. “You and the 49 others on the bus.”

And what will be the interest of the cities bidding for the Super Bowl? Impact of the game on the local economy.

Last heard from, the Minnesota North Stars were talking about shifting for a better money deal to Oakland, which thinks it can offer more money to the football Raiders than the Raiders can get from Los Angeles.

The Chicago Bears are grumbling. Why should the city build a new park for the White Sox and leave the Bears in Soldier Field?

Remodeled by the city four years ago to help the Bears make more money, Soldier Field is no longer acceptable to the team, which pictures how much it could make if it had a new stadium.

Suspensefully, we read almost daily of sparring between the NFL and television people. Will the NFL get $40 million a team, or $35 million, or only $30 million? The anxiety is devastating.

Bowlers are listed in today’s standings on the basis of money they have won--same as golfers, tennis players and race drivers. You want some runner from Ethiopia, a Third World country, to run in your marathon, and he tells you to put 25 big ones on the table.

Malcolm Forbes, who died the other day, requested that his epitaph read: “He lived while he was living.”

For those in sports, the tombstone will note: “He might have done better in arbitration.”