Recipe for Disaster

In early 2000 the dot com bust was big news followed last year by the real estate bust and the bank bust. Let's face it busts are busting out all over.

It doesn't take a business expert to figure out why the busts happened. Values were inflated, people got greedy and everyone paid the price.

Recently most of the players picked in April's NFL draft signed their contracts. They all got huge signing bonues and "life time" pay packages. A few days ago baseball had it's draft. Same result. The top pick pitcher Stephan Strassburg signed with the Washington Nationals for 15.67 million dollars over four years including a 7.5 million dollar signing bonus. The second pick, pitcher Dustin Askley signed with the Seattle Mariners for 7.5 million and the third pick signed with San Diego for 6.25 million.

These are all fine college pitchers but do they really deserve this kind of money before throwing one pitch in a professional baseball game?

The idea of paying young people to play a sport is not new in America but it has gotten completely out of hand and I honestly don't know how much longer it can last at this level.

How much longer can television contracts and ticket sales sustain this kind of pressure? Is the bust just around the corner and if it is why don't the owners see it?

Recently at the University of Washington a beloved athletic department staff member was handed his walking papers as a "budget cut" just months after the new football coaching staff was handed a bag of money to rescue the dismal football program.

Am I the only one who sees a problem with this pattern? Maybe I am. I guess as long as people show up to the ticket window, purchase the game jerseys and the products they see on television game broadcasts everything will be fine. On the other hand if there's ever a dramatic slow down in the revenue flow professional sports franchises could be in for a rude awakening.

I just finished reading a baseball book called, "I would have played for nothing." In the case of some of the players in the book they practically did play for nothing. On top of that many of them served in the military at the height of their careers. Stars like Ted Williams, Joe Dimaggio and Joe Louis spent time in the service during WWII and the Korean War. They worked in the off season to make ends meet and ordinary people could easily identify with them.

I loved the games back then and I love them now I'm just worried that all this money up front for un proven players is a recipe for financial disaster.