Kobe Bryant offered $700,000 per game to play in Italy

[Leeway]

I used to think pro sports salaries were insane, but I'm not so sure anymore. Compare it to drug dealing-there are millions of dollars to be made, but if you take an honest look at what happens, the overwhelming majority of those involved in dealing illegal drugs make squat. They all want to make it to the top, but only a very few will. Same thing in pro sports. Those at the top are making not only their own salary, but the salary of all the wannabes that never make it. The worst firefighter in the country still makes a living wage, so there's not as much for the best.

You're chances of getting capped are much greater in drug dealing than they are in pro sports (unless you're hanging with the Raiders). However, chance of going to jail on a charge are starting to even up.

[Jazzmoose]

Interestingly enough, usually on the same charges...

[Noj]

I still get joy out of watching the best athletes in the world play their sport, and I'm more concerned about what happens on the court or on the field of play than I am who is making what. The numbers are based on how many people are paying attention, whether that means paying a large sum per person to see the game live (while spending $40 for a hat, $15 for a plastic cup of beer, and $10 for a slice of pizza), OR even more abstract the number of people who watch the games on TV and provide a platform for advertising all the various products we buy as consumers.

When I'm watching an NBA game I'm enthralled by the level of play, and I'm not concerned with the politics.

As an added wrinkle it's my opinion that the most phenomenal athletes in the world are skateboarders, and most don't make hardly any money--but I'm not about to hate any of the ones who manage to make some coin, or to stop being amazed when the "most paid" skateboarder does something amazing out of spite for his bank account...

[Jim Alfredson]

My wife is attending a school board meeting tonight that will determine whether Zora's school will close next year. This is in a district that has traditionally been known as a well-off community. This will be the second school that Zora has attended that has closed, if the decision is made. When these things are happening all over the country and yet we have people being paid millions upon millions of dollars to put a ball in a hoop, something is fucking WRONG with the system. Y'all can make excuses for it and sit back and say "Well, that's the way it is," but that doesn't make it right. Like Leeway said, it's the same people who don't blink an eye at spending $300 to watch a stupid baseball game, yet can't be bothered to have their property taxes raised $5 a year to support the school system, that signify the breakdown in priorities and the social contract in general.

I've got mine, fuck you. That's the American way, it seems.

[Noj]

So the solution is to not enjoy sports?

I'm with you all the way until I'm supposed to not like basketball any more, Jim.

The changes which need to be made have to happen by putting pressure on our representatives and on the companies which make money from America to reinvest in America. If our representatives had the interests of the common American in mind, that wouldn't be a problem. Americans need to raise a stink about what's happening to our schools and to our cities. Americans need to rise up and demand action be taken against the corporations which send our jobs elsewhere, who seek to not provide Americans with benefits, who have caused our suburbs to stop growing, who have caused the middle class to shrink. Anything short of a growing middle class is the death of the American dream.

I think tariffs should be levied against goods not manufactured in the USA. Tax penalties against companies who export jobs. Tax rewards for companies which keep their manufacturing in the USA. Tax penalties against CEOs who take unnecessarily large bonuses at the expense of employees. Tax rewards for CEOs who share the motherfucking wealth. Forgive student loans. Reinvest heavily in infrastructure: roads, bridges, levees, parks, schools, etc. The time to say "fuck globalization" and go all out agouraphobic is now. Close the borders, no more immigrants. No more foreign aid. Bring our troops home.

Edited September 26, 2011 by Noj

[Chuck Nessa]

Make the owners pay for the stadiums and make the players play for the door.

[Tim McG]

Kobe will make more satying in LA.

He still has three years left on his $83.7 million dollar contract with the Lakers. Then there are the endorsements.

$700,000 is chump change.

Kobe is not going to risk an $83.7 million contract for $700,000 a game. Something happens to him, the Lakers will cut him loose faster than a speeding bullet (or something).

Another point: the numbers are indeed totally insane. But they are only a reflection of the decayed culture in which we live, where sports and celebrity are the obsession of most of the public. Just a guess, but I would not be surprised that people who would not pay an extra $100 a year for their local schools think nothing of paying out $300 for basketball or hockey or football seats on a regular basis. Bread and circuses.

Exactly.

[Jim Alfredson]

So the solution is to not enjoy sports?

That's just me. Doesn't have to be that way for you or anyone else. But personally, I find professional sports hard to enjoy. I do enjoy a college game now and again but even that starts to piss me off when I think about my alma mater, Michigan State, and how they've been promising a new music building (the current one is insanely out of date) for 20+ years yet there's constant additions to the football stadium, multiple brand new multi-million dollars buildings to help student athletes' education (ie, tutors to do the work for them), new training facilities, etc. and the tuition for regular kids just keeps going up and up and up and up.

Our priorities are completely out of whack. That's all I'm saying. What you choose to do about it is your own choice. Part of my choice is not supporting the massive sports industry financially, which means I don't watch games on TV or in person and I don't buy the merchandise.

Make the owners pay for the stadiums and make the players play for the door.

Now you're talking!

[Tim McG]

So the solution is to not enjoy sports?

I'm with you all the way until I'm supposed to not like basketball any more, Jim.

The changes which need to be made have to happen by putting pressure on our representatives and on the companies which make money from America to reinvest in America. If our representatives had the interests of the common American in mind, that wouldn't be a problem. Americans need to raise a stink about what's happening to our schools and to our cities. Americans need to rise up and demand action be taken against the corporations which send our jobs elsewhere, who seek to not provide Americans with benefits, who have caused our suburbs to stop growing, who have caused the middle class to shrink. Anything short of a growing middle class is the death of the American dream.

I think tariffs should be levied against goods not manufactured in the USA. Tax penalties against companies who export jobs. Tax rewards for companies which keep their manufacturing in the USA. Tax penalties against CEOs who take unnecessarily large bonuses at the expense of employees. Tax rewards for CEOs who share the motherfucking wealth. Forgive student loans. Reinvest heavily in infrastructure: roads, bridges, levees, parks, schools, etc. The time to say "fuck globalization" and go all out agouraphobic is now. Close the borders, no more immigrants. No more foreign aid. Bring our troops home.

I was with you until the last three sentences, Jon.

We're all "foreigners" or interlopers on Native American soil. And where I realize you can't unscramble eggs, so-to-speak, everyone of us have ancestries which come from another part of the world.

Well put, otherwise. I completely agree with you.

Edited September 29, 2011 by GoodSpeak

[GA Russell]

The offer to Bryant now involves "$2.5 million for 10 games over 40 days from Oct. 9 to Nov. 16. That would come out to about $1.5 million after taxes."

That's a lot less than $700,000 per game. Of course, Bryant would be free to leave and rejoin the Lakers when the lockout ends.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/basketball/bryant-says-move-to-italian-club-very-possible-during-lockout/article2183300/