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Going for green: how athletes make a career out of sports
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Content
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Going for Green: How Athletes Make a Career Out of Sports
by Kelly O’Mara
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A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM)
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May 2015
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Copyright 2015 Kelly O’Mara !
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Table of Contents
LIST OF FIGURES
ABSTRACT
1. INTRODUCTION
2. INTERVIEWEES
3. WEBSITE
I. Introduction
II. Baseball
III. Football
IV . Track and Field
4. CONCLUSION
5. BIBLIOGRAPHY
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List of Figures
Figure 1. Screenshot of the introduction title page to website 10
Figure 2. Screenshot of the end of the first baseball section, with answers to click on 13
Figure 3: Organized team sports participation in 2012 (Kelly and Carchia, 2013) 14
Figure 4. Screenshot of interactive module showcasing potential injuries when clicked 26
Figure 5: Screenshot of the beginning of the football section of the website 31
Figure 6. Screenshot of interactive module on injuries in football 45
Figure 7. Screenshot of interactive module at the end of the football section 55
Figure 8. Screenshot of the beginning of the track and field section 56
Figure 9. Screenshot of the running section of the website 63
Figure 10. Screenshot of the end of the website 71
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Abstract
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This thesis examines the economic issues surrounding athletes’ careers in different sports,
namely what affects how much money an athlete can make and how long a career he or she can
have. This is done with an interactive website that allows users to click through various scenarios
and arrive at a range of outcomes.
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I started this project with the question that so many people seem to throw around during big
sporting events: Could I do that? While 45 million kids play some kind of organized sport, over
70 percent of them will quit by the time they get to high school (Merkel, 2013). Yet many adults
harbor secret sports fantasy and espouse on Monday night quarterback theories about what they
would do if they had the chance. What those same people often fail to understand is the
complexity that goes into making a career out of playing any sport. The answer to ‘could you do
what the professional athletes do?’ is often: no.
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Through interviews with athletes in baseball, football and track and field, as well as with agents,
players’ union representatives and lawyers, this thesis creates a kind of ‘choose your own
adventure’ game that follows multiple athletes through their careers. Along the way, by clicking
on boxes that open alternative options, the users can see how that career could have gone
differently if the athlete hadn’t gotten hurt or had signed a bigger contract upfront. The
interactivity of the website is ideal for a topic that has so many different paths a person can take.
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http://www.komara.ascjportfolio.org/FinalProject/
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While it’s not designed so that any one user has to read everything on the website—since you
can venture down one branch, hit a dead end and the re-trace your steps—each path can also be
considered on its merits. No matter what button you click, you will have a complete story about
the challenges an athlete faces from precocious youth to talented professional.
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The hope is that, at the end, you will both be better informed about some of the specific details
about how careers work in large team sports, like football or baseball, or smaller individual
sports, like track and field, and that the interactive website, itself, highlights the complexity of
the experience.
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1. Introduction
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I built the website from scratch using relatively straightforward JavaScript commands. While it
could be built indefinitely—with countless athletes’ stories and interactivity—the simplest
coding solution seemed like the best one in this case. At the end of each box of text and
multimedia, I coded a question and response as a set of buttons that then opens the next box,
depending on what your answer is. ie. If the user answers the question ‘Have you been drafted?’
with a ‘Yes,’ then the user would be taken to another box with details about how the draft process
works and what the next steps for the athlete would be. This continues through all the important
questions: playing in college, the draft, injuries, contracts and sponsors.
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There were challenges along the way with creating a seamless process for users to move through
the website. Because each path has to stand on its own, it was important to make sure that
nothing was missed no matter which direction you explore. I had also hoped to create more
interactive modules within the site, such as a drag and drop calculator to show what professional
athletes spend their money on, but it was too complicated.
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Each section also focuses on a main topic within the given sport. The baseball section primarily
explores the minor league system. The football section examines the issue of what NFL players
do after they retire, and how they are able to succeed (or not) later in life. And the track and field
section dives into the complicated topic of individual contracts and their reduction clauses.
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In order to tell a full story in each section, I interviewed athletes in each sport to tell their stories,
but also spoke with players’ agents and representatives.
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2. Interviewees
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Alex McRobbie is a former minor league baseball player with the Toronto Blue Jays and then
with the Anaheim Angels. After leaving the minor leagues, he became a physical therapist in the
San Francisco Bay Area.
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Garrett Broshuis is a lawyer with Korein Tillery, LLC. After six years as a minor league pitcher,
Broshuis became an attorney and is now leading a lawsuit against Minor League Baseball,
alleging that the minor league system violates U.S. labor law.
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Jeff Lantz is the director of communications for Minor League Baseball. He previously worked
in PR for major league baseball teams.
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Leigh Steinberg is a sports agent who has represented over 150 athletes and the No. 1 NFL draft
pick more times than any other agent. Steinberg currently heads up Steinberg Sports and
Entertainment and is often credited as the inspiration for the movie Jerry Maguire.
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Nate Jackson is a former NFL player. He was signed as a free agent with the San Francisco
49ers before going on to play six years with the Denver Broncos. He, currently, is a writer and
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commentator and the author of the book Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the
Bottom of the Pile.
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Alex Holmes was a tight end at USC, when the team won two national championships, and
signed as a free agent with the Miami Dolphins and the St. Louis Rams. Today, he runs the
digital and social media company, Wild Hair Media, and manages venture capital investments.
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Mark Levin is the director of salary cap and agent administration for the NFL Players’
Association, the union for NFL players. The NFLPA oversees the players’ contract negotiated
with the NFL, as well as the certification of players’ agents.
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Nick Symmonds is an 800 meter runner, who won silver at the 2013 world championships. He is
also an outspoken presence on social media and is sponsored by Brooks Running.
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Jack Wickens is a USA Track and Field board director. Wickens did a comprehensive study of
how much athletes make in the sport.
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3. Website
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Below is the complete text of the website, Going for Green, with screenshots showing how the
interactive buttons operate and what the various options are to lead users along.
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I. Website Introduction
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How Do Athletes Make Money?
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Making a living as an athlete isn't easy. Being good is important, but so is being lucky and well-
marketed and understanding the system. If you play a team sport, then you hope to get drafted,
sign a contract and save up while you can. If you're an athlete in an individual sport, then you
hope to get good sponsorship deals and accumulate prize money. Could you make it? Click on
one of the three athlete's stories to see how they did -- and how you'd do in comparison. Then
click through the questions to find out more.
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When the user clicks on one of three circles below this introduction it opens up an athlete’ s story
in baseball, football or track and field.
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Figure 1. Screenshot of the introduction title page to website
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II. Baseball
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Meet Minor Leaguer Alex McRobbie
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Just like lots of kids all over the country, when Alex McRobbie was 5 years old, he started
playing baseball. He played third base, outfielder and later pitcher in the local little league in San
Anselmo, California. "I've played my whole life," he said.
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But, unlike most of those kids, McRobbie really did play his whole life -- or at least for 20 years
of it.
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Little League President Stephen D. Keener wrote in an open letter to parents in 2005 that out of 5
million kids playing baseball right now, only 400,000 of them will play in high school (Keener,
2005). Of those 400,000 high school players, only around 1,500 will be drafted into the
professional leagues and about 500 of the 1,500 will play one or two season in the minor leagues.
Maybe, out of the 5 million who started, 100 will reach the major leagues and one of those might
be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. That makes your odds of being a Hall of
Fame player about one in 5 million.
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McRobbie is not a Hall of Fame player. But he is one of those lucky 500 who made it to the
minors. His odds were 1 in 10,000.
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It wasn't easy and it wasn't glamorous. In fact, for the three years he pitched in the minors,
McRobbie supplied his own equipment, lived with a host family and rarely saw his friends or
family during the season. But he got to play baseball. "It's just baseball all the time," he said.
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Today, McRobbie, 30, is a physical therapist outside San Francisco. During his time in the
minors, he played in West Virginia and Southern California. He even briefly quit pitching before
going back to it. For most minor league players, the minors will never to lead to the majors. It is
simply a poorly paid interlude in their lives.
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For Garrett Broshuis, 33, that six-year interlude as a minor league pitcher stuck with him even
after he went on to take the LSATs, go to law school and become an attorney. Now, Broshuis,
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with Korein Tillery, LLC in St. Louis, Missouri, is one of the lead lawyers on a suit filed in
February 2014 in California Northern District Court against Major League Baseball. The
complaint alleges that the payment and treatment of minor league players violates U.S. labor law.
It argues that most minor league players make between $3,000 and $7,500 for the entire year,
despite working more than 50 hours per week during the five-month season. (A similar anti-trust
class action lawsuit was also filed against MLB in January.) From the complaint:
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“The Defendants have preyed upon minor leaguers, who are powerless to combat the collusive
power of the MLB cartel. MLB continues to actively and openly collude on many aspects of
minor leaguers' working conditions, including, but not limited to, wages, contract terms, drug
testing, and discipline. For example, while major leaguers' salaries have increased by more than
2,000 percent since 1976, minor leaguers' salaries have, on average, increased only 75 percent
since that time. Meanwhile inflation has risen by more than 400 percent over that same time
period.”
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"This was something I thought about for a long time," said Broshuis. If he gets his way, the suit
will become a class action lawsuit for all recent minor league players.
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But could you even make it as far as McRobbie or Broshuis? You'd have to start early. It takes
years to get good at such a technique-focused sport.
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Figure 2: Screenshot of the end of the first baseball section, with answers to click on
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Did you start playing as a kid?
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You are then able to click either yes or no. If you answer no, then the following appears:
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While baseball is still one of the most popular sports in the country for young boys, its popularity
has been dropping in the last decade. The number of kids playing baseball has decreased by
around 25 percent since 2000. In fact, according to The Wall Street Journal (Futterman, 2011), its
decline in popularity is so concerning that MLB has commissioned its own internal research to
figure out how to get more kids to play.
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Part of the problem is that there are just so many other sports for kids to play and so many other
sports for them to be excel at. ESPN looked at the demographic data for youth sports (Kelly and
Carchia, 2013):
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Figure 3: Organized team sports participation in 2012 (Kelly and Carchia, 2013)
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At the same time that youth participation is increasingly spread out across many sports,
participation in almost all sports declines once those kids get to high school. It is estimated that
about 70 percent of kids quit by the time they're 13 years old. A growing field of research is
attempting to address the factors that push kids out of sports: aggressive parents, over-
competitive leagues and a lack of fun. One of the key factors, though, is that by the time they're
in high school, many kids realize they're not going to be professional baseball players after all
and they quit.
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But if you're going to make it to the big leagues, then you have to start early and stick with it.
Baseball players can be scouted fairly young and drafted well before their 20th birthday. If you
didn't start playing baseball a long time ago, then you probably aren't going to make a living at it.
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Try another sport.
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If you picked yes in the first box, then the below appears:
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An Early Start
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Of course you played sports as a kid. Almost everyone played sports as a kid. According to a
survey done by ESPN, only 13 percent of boys and 18 percent of girls, between the ages of 8 and
17, have never joined a team or played a sport of any kind. (Kelley and Carchia, 2013) The
question isn't if you played, it's if you stuck with it.
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At the same time that youth participation is increasingly spread out across many sports,
participation in almost all sports declines once those kids get to high school. It is estimated that
about 70 percent of kids quit by the time they're 13 years old. A growing field of research is
attempting to address the factors that push kids out of sports: aggressive parents, over-
competitive leagues and a lack of fun. One of the key factors, though, is that by the time they're
in high school, many kids realize they're not going to be professional baseball players after all,
and they quit.
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McRobbie was good enough to rise to the top of his youth teams. He played third base, outfielder
and pitcher. It wasn't until college that he became solely focused on pitching -- though he almost
didn't get that opportunity.
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As a 17-year-old, he didn't know much about getting a scholarship to college. No one on his
team or at Drake High School, outside San Francisco, could guide him. Other players in the high
school league, who went to bigger or more well-connected schools, got scholarships. But not
McRobbie. So he applied to UC-Santa Barbara and just hoped he'd be able to make the team.
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Were you good enough to play in college?
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If you answer no, you were not good enough to play in college, then the below appears:
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Not Good Enough for College
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McRobbie almost didn't play in college. Drake High School is a small school, with about 1,000
kids, and McRobbie didn't play competitive baseball outside of school, so he rarely got a chance
to be seen by scouts or college coaches. If you aren't seen by the right people, then the right
people are never going to know what you can do. You won't get any scholarship offers and then
that's almost definitely the end of that.
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"I didn't have the awareness and the people around me to tell me how to track down a
scholarship," said McRobbie. Instead, he picked UC-Santa Barbara for its academics, and
walked on to the team.
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Even if you get seen by the right people in high school, your odds are still not great. There are
298 NCAA Division I baseball programs. Each of those teams is allowed to offer a maximum of
11.7 scholarships to its players, per NCAA rules. (There are another 238 Division II programs,
which have nine scholarships per team to dole out, and 365 Division III programs, which do not
have any scholarships, but can offer financial aid packages. The serious high school player could
also look at smaller NAIA schools and junior/community colleges -- if playing baseball is a
priority. But is it?)
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Of course, if you're really good and have a big enough profile, you could just go straight into the
draft from high school. Of the 50 rounds in the MLB draft every year, about half the draftees are
from high school and half are from college.
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But if you're not good enough to play in college, then you're probably not going to get drafted
out of high school anyway.
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Were you drafted?
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If you answered earlier that yes, you were good enough to play in college, then the blow would
have appeared instead of the previous box:
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Playing in College
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In all the college programs, at every school, at all the different levels, there are only about 50,000
college baseball players.
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There are 298 NCAA Division I baseball programs. Each of those teams is allowed to offer a
maximum of 11.7 scholarships to its players, per NCAA rules. (There are another 238 Division II
programs, which have nine scholarships per team to dole out, and 365 Division III programs,
which do not have any scholarships, but can offer financial aid packages. The serious high school
player could also look at smaller NAIA schools and junior/community colleges -- if playing
baseball is a priority. But is it?)
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After McRobbie walked on to the UC-Santa Barbara team, he was eventually awarded a partial
scholarship his junior year. Only one or two of the players on the team were given full
scholarships, with the remaining money mostly divvied up.
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While the NCAA has come under criticism recently for making money off of college athletes,
players are at least, generally, guaranteed nice equipment and facilities and coaches. And it was
fun. That wasn't always the case later, said McRobbie.
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Plus, pitching for UC-Santa Barbara gave McRobbie exposure and experience. The team played
big baseball powerhouses, like Cal State-Long Beach and Cal State-Fullerton. That meant that
there were MLB scouts at games. If the MLB scouts are there to watch players on one team, then
they still see players on the other team, too. As McRobbie pitched, he started to attract interest.
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"They'd drop a card off in your locker if they're interested," said McRobbie. The coaches and
scouts try to feel players out before picking them.
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While college players aren't allowed to sign with an agent and retain their collegiate eligibility,
they can certainly talk to whomever they want in preparation for the draft. "They can talk to
agents from the moment they're born," said Leigh Steinberg, the super-agent about whom the
1996 film Jerry Maguire is based.
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"I probably talked to 15 different major league teams," said McRobbie. From then, it was just a
matter of waiting to see if his name was picked.
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Were you drafted?
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If you said no, you weren’t drafted in either of the above boxes, whichever way you got to that
question, then the below would appear:
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The End of the Road
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The MLB draft is not like football or basketball. There are typically about 50 rounds in the draft,
and most of the people drafted in those rounds are headed to the minor leagues for good. If you
aren't drafted, then your odds of continuing to play baseball aren't high.
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There is one other option. You could work your way up, attract attention from a scout and hope
to sign with a team later. There are six different levels of minor league play and there are also
independent teams -- meaning minor league-level teams that are not affiliated with the MLB.
Players generally play on those teams hoping to get signed to an MLB-affiliated minor league
team and then keep working their way up.
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According to Jeff Lantz, the director of communications for Minor League Baseball (MiLB),
MLB teams essentially have the rights to the players they draft and sign. The MLB teams pay for
minor leaguers' salaries, coaches and two-thirds of the equipment costs, while MiLB pays the
rest of the equipment costs and maintains the facilities per operating agreements signed with
MLB.
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"It's a very weird set-up," said Broshuis. The groundwork for our current minor league baseball
system was originally created by MLB executive Branch Rickey in the 1920s, while he was with
the St. Louis Cardinals, as a grooming grounds for future major leaguers and as a way to develop
players in a central system. Because the minor league system is, at its core, funded and led by
MLB, it is MLB that Broshuis is going after in the lawsuit. "You can be one step away from the
majors and be making $11,000/year," he said, the standard salary in AAA baseball.
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But for those who are drafted it's an opportunity to prove themselves and hope it pays off -- an
opportunity you don't get if you aren't drafted.
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"I would have given anything to play pro ball for one day," said Lantz, who played in college,
but not after.
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McRobbie was initially drafted in 2005 by the Toronto Blue Jays in the 24th round. He went to
training camp and was then sent off to a 7,000-person town in West Virginia. But, after pitching
for a season, the team released him from his contract -- a nice way of saying they cut him.
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But that wasn't the end of the road for him. He, eventually, went to Orange County, California to
play independent (non-affiliated) ball for a few months. An Angels scout saw him, signed him
and he was back in the minors -- at a higher level of minor league play than he'd left.
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So, if you don't get drafted, you can play independent ball -- which typically pays just a few
hundred dollars per month during the season and nothing out of the season -- or you can head
down to Latin America and play in the leagues there -- always hoping to get signed eventually. If
you don't get signed, then you really are done. For good.
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Sorry, that's the end of your baseball career.
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If you had said that were drafted, whether or not you played in college, then this is what you
would see:
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What Now?
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To find out if he was drafted, McRobbie simply had to sit and listen to the broadcast. There's no
process to declare if you're entering the draft or not. You just wait. "You don't know if you have a
future in baseball until they read your name," he said.
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It took 24 rounds before McRobbie was picked by the Toronto Blue Jays in 2005. Pretty much
everyone -- including first-round picks -- is then sent off to training camp and to play rookie ball.
There are six levels to minor league play, which you can move up through quickly or slowly.
There's a system to all this and you, now, are just part of the system.
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It is that system that is now coming under attack from the suit Broshius filed last year, and others
like it.
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Minor league players are paid about $1,100/month at the lowest levels of minor league ball;
salaries start at $2,000/month in AAA ball. They're only paid even that amount during the season,
said Broshuis. Yet they report to spring training and instructional leagues or events at other times
of the year, with no salary at all.
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"In any other industry, it would seem absurd," said Broshius.
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According to Jeff Lantz, the director of communications for Minor League Baseball (MiLB),
MLB teams essentially have the rights to the players they draft and sign. The MLB teams pay for
minor leaguers' salaries, coaches, and two-thirds of the equipment costs, while MiLB pays the
rest of the equipment costs and maintains the facilities per operating agreements signed with
MLB.
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Since McRobbie didn't hire an agent until his third year, when he first got drafted, he didn't have
anyone to look things over. He just signed what he was sent -- a contract with lots of stipulations
about how much you'll be paid, when you'll be paid, what you have to do exactly when and what
the teams are responsible for. "It's pretty standardized and they don't really negotiate," says
McRobbie, and if you're lower than the 10th round, then they really don't negotiate. (Because he
was a graduating college senior, he also had very few options. The college juniors who were
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drafted in his round received around $30,000 to $40,000 in signing bonuses, but he didn't; they
had the option of not signing and playing another year in college, but he didn't.)
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"You get no say at all," said Broshius. And he knows what he's talking about. He played for six
years starting in Salem, Oregon, before being sent to San Jose, California, then to Fresno,
California, then to Connecticut. At one point, his then-girlfriend was supposed to fly in for a
visit. But just days before she was going to show up, he was traded away.
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The minors weren't what McRobbie expected either. Maybe it's not what anyone expects. This is
what these guys have been working towards since they were kids, but here they are and it isn't
what they thought it would be. It wasn't even as nice as playing in college, said McRobbie. He
got to Tampa and was just one of hundreds of young players, with little say in what was
happening. "It's so clear you're just starting at the bottom of the barrel," he said. "No one knows
you," and no one cares to. He showed up to camp in Tampa slated to throw in the bullpen for
three weeks. This was not the dream.
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After playing in West Virginia for a season, where he lived in a house with five guys and no
furniture and paid $50/month in rent, he decided he was done. For getting just ten days off
during the whole season, McRobbie made $1,100/month -- but only when the team was playing.
The other half of the year, he worked odd jobs to save up money. "They also set you up with host
families and feed you a little," he says. They didn't even give him equipment; he used stuff he
had saved up from college.
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McRobbie briefly got a regular job as a wine salesman. He thought he was done with baseball.
But having a regular job isn't that exciting and baseball wasn't done with him, so he went back
one more time.
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That's when he headed to Orange County to play independent ball -- unaffiliated with the MLB --
until he got signed to the Angels' minor league team. He then earned $1,600/month and lived
with a family (a couple who had a 24-year-old daughter, just about the same age as him) in
Rancho Cucamonga. Things were looking up, until he got injured.
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Have you been injured?
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If you say you’ve never have been injured, then this is what you should do to continue to build
your career:
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Don't Get Hurt
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If you're injured, then the team can not legally cut you. This is also true in the NFL and,
according to the NFL Players Association, much of the work they do is spent negotiating injury
rights with teams. That might also be true in baseball's minors, but the minor league players don't
have a union.
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But once you're healed and better, then the team is cleared of liability and is allowed to drop you
as soon as they want. And if you're not that valuable or if you have a history of getting hurt, then
'as soon as they want' is going to be soon.
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By the end of his year with the Angels, McRobbie was playing through pain. "I was hurt and I
knew it," he said. "I just tore the crap out of my shoulder."
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That meant that he spent seven months in Arizona, rehabbing and getting back in throwing
shape. Finally, he was all better and headed back to California to play. His very first game, he
"totally blew out" his shoulder.
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Tearing your labrum tissue in your shoulder is not that uncommon in pitchers. The tiny
microtears from every time the tissue rubs against the bone in your shoulder slowly build up.
Injuries in baseball players are frequent; these are some of the most common injuries baseball
players face:
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Figure 4: Screenshot of interactive module showcasing potential injuries when clicked on
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After his shoulder was destroyed, McRobbie met with the Angels' surgeon, who told him that he
could have surgery, but the surgery had a 10 to 20 percent success rate. And, even after that, he'd
have to work his way back down a two-year rehab path, hope he didn't get cut during that time
(or figure out how to sustain himself if he did get cut) and by then he'd be 27-years-old, which is
"ancient for the minor leagues," McRobbie said.
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If you manage to stay healthy, then you could make it. McRobbie was about to move up to AA in
the minors, if he hadn't gotten hurt. But, even if you make it, a lot of things go into just exactly
how much you make it.
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What goes into how much money you'll make?
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If you had said that you had been injured, then you would have seen this information instead:
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Get Better
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If you're injured, then the team can not legally cut you. This is also true in the NFL and,
according to the NFL Players Association, much of the work they do is spent negotiating injury
rights with teams. That might also be true in baseball's minors, but the minor league players don't
have a union.
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But, once you're healed and better, then the team is cleared of liability and is allowed to drop you
as soon as they want. And if you're not that valuable or if you have a history of getting hurt, then
'as soon as they want' is going to be soon.
!
By the end of his year with the Angels, McRobbie was playing through pain. "I was hurt and I
knew it," he said. "I just tore the crap out of my shoulder."
!
That meant that he spent seven months in Arizona, rehabbing and getting back in throwing
shape. Finally, he was all better and headed back to California to play. His very first game, he
"totally blew out" his shoulder.
!
Tearing your labrum tissue in your shoulder is not that uncommon in pitchers. The tiny
microtears from every time the tissue rubs against the bone in your shoulder slowly build up.
Injuries in baseball players are frequent; these are some of the most comon injuries baseball
players face:
!
(This is the same interactive as above.)
!
After his shoulder was destroyed, McRobbie met with the Angels' surgeon, who told him that he
could have surgery, but the surgery had a 10 to 20 percent success rate. And, even after that, he'd
have to work his way back down a two-year rehab path, hope he didn't get cut during that time
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28
(or figure out how to sustain himself if he did get cut), and by then he'd be 27-years-old, which is
"ancient for the minor leagues," said McRobbie
!
If you manage to stay healthy, then you could make it. McRobbie was about to move up to AA in
the minors, if he hadn't gotten hurt. But, even if you make it, a lot of things go into just exactly
how much you make it.
!
What goes into how much money you'll make?
!
No matter what option you pick, you end up with this final conclusion:
!
Congratulations!
!
You're a professional baseball player. Now what?
!
When McRobbie was still pitching through the pain while playing for the Angels' minor league
team in Southern California, he got a call from the Philadelphia Phillies. "It turns out I was a free
agent at the end of that year and I didn't know it," he said.
!
Rookie contracts are typically seven years and he thought that he signed a seven-year contract
when he signed with the Angels, but it turned out that he didn't. "At that point, I got an agent," he
said.
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!
For a minor league player, an agent basically gets him gear and equipment -- and it'll pay off for
the agent if the player gets a contract in the majors. Then, an agent will help negotiate the deal
and take a cut of it, limited to 5 percent in baseball. Agents can also negotiate endorsement deals,
of which they'll take a larger cut, said Steinberg. And, if an agent is good (and worth what you're
paying), then they'll handle day-to-day problems, offer advice and help steer an athlete towards
their second career -- because there always has to be a second career, even for the best players.
!
Agents can also be helpful after your first rookie contract is over. Then, you're a free agent. And
being a free agent is a "factor of supply and demand," said Steinberg. When the free agent time
period is coming up, Steinberg will sit with his athletes to make a list of possibly interested
teams, decide what order to talk to those teams and aim to create leverage for negotiating. It all
depends on team need, the player's position and age, how good the athlete is, if they're injured
and if they're marketable or valuable. Because the end of the rookie contract is the first time the
market can really come to bear, there can be great rookie players who are still be paid much less
than their teammates, said Steinberg. For example, center fielder Mike Trout was one of the best
players in MLB in 2013, but he was still on a rookie contract and was only making $600,000/
year.
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So, how much money have you made?
!
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Figure 5: Screenshot of the beginning of the football section of the website
!
If you made it to the majors, then the minimum salary is $500,000/year. But don't spend it all at
once. You could get cut or sent back down to the minors -- which often happens.
!
If you never made it out of the minors, then you likely saw, at best, just $11,000/year. Of course,
you're also getting a lottery ticket that you hope pays off. "They don't have to sign with a team,"
said Lantz. "They're chasing the dream, and you can't fault them for that."
!
"That's actually part of the reason they can keep salaries so low," said Broshius.
!
III. Football
!
Once you finish looking at once of the sports’ sections, then you can go back and start over
again. If you click on the football icon, then you’d open up the football branch of the website.
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31
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America's Sport
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Nate Jackson didn't start playing football until high school. Neither did Alex Holmes. Jackson
because his parents didn't want him to; Holmes because he was too big for Pop Warner. But both
would go on to careers in the NFL.
!
"My mom and dad wouldn't let me play as a kid, but I loved football," said Jackson, who would
ultimately play for six seasons with the Denver Broncos. Being in San Jose, and growing up with
the 49ers, that was his team. He loved the players, the mystique of the game and everything
about the sport. "I loved it, but I wasn't that good."
!
"I didn't get recruited out of high school at all," he said, which is probably understandable.
Jackson went to a small high school, Pioneer High School, in San Jose, where he was a receiver
on the team. Scouting wasn't as thorough back in the mid-1990s and not many scouts made their
way to Pioneer. Even if they had, they probably wouldn't have seen anything in the local kid,
who played just like plenty of other local kids. "There were no indicators that I was going to be
playing big-time college ball," he said.
!
That's the way it is for most people. Most people love this sport they grew up with and saw on
TV . Maybe they play it. Maybe they're not bad. But they're probably not good enough to keep at
it.
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32
!
Were you good enough to play in college?
!
If you weren’t good enough to play in college, then when you click ‘no’ you’ll learn about your
options:
!
Because college teams currently operate, for better or worse, as a NFL training ground, if you
don't play college football at some point, then you probably are done playing football period.
There are always other alternative lower-level professional leagues to try your hand in, but the
majority of players' careers end after college.
!
Jackson could have become one of those statistics. He tried to walk on at California Poly-San
Luis Obispo and got cut. For a few years, he didn't play, but then started to miss the game.
!
Ultimately, Jackson opted to transfer to tiny 750-person Menlo College in Atherton, California,
where he could both be closer to home and get the chance to play on the school's football team.
There was no money in it, no scholarship and seemingly no chance of making it, he said. "It was
the most pure environment you could imagine," said Jackson.
!
While some rare players do get drafted out of Division II and III schools, especially as
professional scouting has gotten more in-depth, Jackson didn't. He entered the draft knowing that
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33
was what would probably happen. His agent told him it was possible he'd get drafted into the
NFL in the seventh of seven rounds; otherwise, he'd have to go the free agent route.
!
"There are no rules to this process," said Leigh Steinberg, the super-agent about whom the 1996
film Jerry Maguire is based. He means that there are no rules for what you should do to get the
best deal you can. An athlete has to navigate the different teams that could be interested in him,
try to convince one of those teams to draft him and then sign the best deal he can. "They need
someone who's been through it before," said Steinberg.
!
Want to become a free agent?
!
If you were good enough to play in college, then you’ll see this:
!
Holmes started playing football in high school too. His family lived in San Diego, but his parents
were thinking about moving up to Los Angeles, for his dad's job. Holmes' PSAT score, plus his
freshman-year football skills, earned him a call from the elite Harvard-Westlake prep school in
L.A.
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Once he got to Harvard-Westlake, Holmes excelled and dominated as a tight end and middle
linebacker. Unlike many other professional sports, plenty of high-level football players don't
necessarily start playing until they're in their teens or in high school. Holmes' brother, Khaled,
didn't play until high school either and is now a center for the Indiana Colts. Because of the
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34
game's physical demands, it's not uncommon for athletes to excel once they start putting on
height and muscle. With growing concerns about young kids in a high-contact sport,
participation in youth football has also been declining, according to ESPN.
!
Once you put on some height and muscle, and get some experience at the game, then it's just a
matter of getting a scholarship to play in college.
!
"All the colleges were calling me," said Holmes. "I was considered the No. 1 prospect in my
position."
!
This was back before cell phones and during the early internet, so most potential college recruits
would make highlight tapes. Holmes didn't; basically, he let ESPN do his highlighting for him.
The channel had plenty of Alex Holmes to go around.
!
At the time, in 1999, the University of Southern California was on the verge of becoming again a
dominant football powerhouse, though no one could yet know it. But the school offered
something else that Holmes thought was even more valuable than football. "They introduced me
to a lot of prominent alumni who'd been successful in business," he said. That was important to
him, to start preparing for what would eventually come later. "You're not going to play football
forever."
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Holmes excelled as a tight end at USC. He knew he was good enough to play football
professionally, but also that he needed to prepare for what would come after football. After
redshirting his senior year, he came back to USC for one last season to graduate and to enter the
draft. The NFL draft is daunting for a 20-year-old kid who just wants to get picked as high as he
can.
!
"There are no rules to this process," said Leigh Steinberg, the super-agent about whom the 1996
film Jerry Maguire is based. He means that there are no rules for what you should do to get the
best deal you can. An athlete has to navigate the different teams that could be interested in him,
try to convince one of those teams to draft him and then sign the best deal he can. "They need
someone who's been through it before," said Steinberg.
!
Did you get drafted?
!
If you click on the button to say you didn’t get drafted, or if you clicked in earlier box that you
wanted to become a free agent, then you’ll end up here:
!
The NFL Players Association strongly advises players to get agents, said Mark Levin, the
director of salary cap and agent administration for the NFL Players Association. While how
much an athlete makes coming out of the draft is pretty straightforward, negotiating free agent
deals, either because you didn't get drafted or because your draft rookie contract has ended, is
more complicated.
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36
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"There's no arbitrator. There's no judge to say what is right," said Steinberg. "It's a factor of
supply and demand." If you're the only tight end whose a free agent right now and four teams
need tight ends, that's great for you. If you're a marketable player who fans identify with,
something quarterbacks tend to have an advantage at because TVs actually show their faces, said
Levin, that's also good for you. Otherwise, you have to rely on your agent to talk to teams,
negotiate deals and find the best option.
!
"If you're good enough, you don't have to go looking for agents," said Jackson. Like in anything,
especially things with lots of money involved, there are trustworthy and less-trustworthy people
involved. Jackson went with a local, smaller agent whom he trusted. The kinds of agents who
take on smaller free agent players are different than the big-name guys, said Jackson. "They're
not getting huge money for that."
!
Agents earn 3 percent on players' contracts and 10-15 percent on sponsorship and endorsement
deals.
!
The day of the draft teams generally know what they want and who they're going to try to get.
That means that teams also have a list of guys they're going to reach out to after the draft ends.
Jackson started getting those calls during the 7th round. So did Holmes.
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Jackson chose to join the San Francisco 49ers, because he grew up with them, he loved them, it
was part of the dream. And then he signed whatever they said to sign.
!
"You have very little negotiating power," said Jackson. "You basically sign whatever contract
they put in front of you. You just want to play."
!
The 49ers did give Jackson a $5,000 signing bonus, which is rare for an undrafted free agent. At
the time, the NFL minimum was $225,000/year, which goes up about $80,000 for every year you
play in the league. That means that the older you get, the more it costs the team -- at the same
time that you're getting less valuable. For low-level players, it becomes increasingly less likely
that you'll be kept around.
!
Almost everything between an NFL player and the team is laid out in the current 300-page
collective bargaining agreement between the NFLPA and the NFL. It details what an athlete is
required to do in off-season practices, drug testing policies, arbitration processes, and how much
athletes are paid. Because there is a salary cap for how much teams can spend ($143,280,000 in
2015) and a minimum annual salary for athletes ($435,000 for a rookie in 2015), then how much
a team spends on each player is really just a matter of math.
!
The most recent collective bargaining agreement, negotiated in 2011, made the system much
more a matter of simply slotting in players based on when they were picked or drafted and how
long they've been in the league, said Levin, "regardless of who his agent is." The minimum
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38
salary, for example, for a 10+ year player in the NFL (not that there are many of those) is
$970,000 in 2015. Three previous years in the league would earn you a minimum of $660,000
this year. The important differences come in the details: how much of that money is guaranteed
and how much is paid out upfront. Because players can be cut at any time, the more money that
can be guaranteed and paid out at the beginning, the better.
!
You're only paid league minimum if you make the active squad, though. After getting traded
from the 49ers to the Denver Broncos, Jackson, ultimately, ended up on the Bronco's practice
squad. On the practice squad, he made $85,000/year, paid out on a weekly basis, with no
guarantee he'd be around next week. He also had to sign a "split," meaning that if he got put on
the injury reserve list then his pay would get cut in half. Splits are common for rookies and
undrafted free agents, or players with little negotiating power.
!
Did you get injured?
!
If you did get drafted, then the below appears:
!
Congratulations! You were drafted! Now what?
!
Once a player is drafted by a team, there are actually lots of rules to govern exactly what happens
next and how. There's really very little mystery about how much a player is going to earn coming
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39
out of the draft. "I could tell you right now what the first pick is going to get," said Mark Levin,
the director of salary cap and agent administration for the NFL Players Association.
!
If a player is drafted in one of the NFL's seven rounds, then they have no option but to either sign
with that team or not. "You're that team's property for a year," said Levin. That means that if you
don't sign with the team that picked you, then you can't sign with any other team until the next
draft one year later. For obvious reasons, players generally don't opt to go that route. Levin said,
"100 percent of the players who get drafted sign."
!
Players also don't have much say in how much they'll make in that first contract they sign.
Players drafted higher will earn more and players drafted lower will earn less, but it's really all
very simple.
!
Almost everything between an NFL player and the team is laid out in the current 300-page
collective bargaining agreement between the NFLPA and the NFL. It details what an athlete is
required to do in off-season practices, drug testing policies, arbitration processes and how much
athletes are paid. Because there is a salary cap for how much teams can spend ($143,280,000 in
2015) and a minimum annual salary for athletes ($435,000 for a rookie in 2015), then how much
a team spends on each player is really just a matter of math.
!
The most recent collective bargaining agreement, negotiated in 2011, made the system much
more a matter of simply slotting in players based on when they were picked or drafted and how
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40
long they've been in the league, said Levin, "regardless of who his agent is." The minimum
salary, for example, for a 10+ year player in the NFL (not that there are many of those) is
$970,000 in 2015. Three years in the league would earn you a minimum of $660,000 this year.
The important differences come in the details: how much of that money is guaranteed and how
much is paid out upfront. Because players can be cut at any time, the more money that can be
guaranteed and paid out at the beginning, the better.
!
Before the salary cap, said Steinberg, agents could make a much bigger difference in players'
contracts. Now, there are still ways to affect the contract, such as escalator clauses written in and
void buybacks -- a complicated way for players to get more money upfront, but have it stretched
over a longer contract, which can be voided if certain performance incentives are met. "Clever
lawyers can find these loopholes," said Steinberg.
!
While the NFLPA strongly advises players to get agents, said Levin, the real work for an agent
comes in finding sponsorship deals, working on players' day-to-day issues and, ultimately,
negotiating the players' contracts after they become a free agent and are trying to find the best
deal they can. For all this, agents earn 3 percent of a players' earnings and 10-15 percent on
endorsement deals.
!
After Holmes' last season at USC, he sat down with his family, talked about his options, picked
an agent and headed to New Orleans to train for a few months with Tom Shaw for the combine, a
common tactic among potential draft picks. Steinberg said that he typically sends his draft
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prospects through a combine bootcamp, so that they come out prepared. "If you ask an agent,
they all think they have this mystical power to get you drafted higher," said Levin.
!
Holmes was ranked highly as a tight end and so he headed to the combine and the Senior Bowl.
Going into the draft, he and his agent talked to a handful of teams, who told him variations of: if
this team picks x guy, then we'll pick you. In the end, though, he went undrafted and signed with
the Miami Dolphins as a free agent. Sometimes, that's just just how it goes.
!
Now, you're on an NFL team and signed a contract. Life is great. But the average career in the
league is only 3.5 years, so you better hope you don't get hurt and have a plan for if you do.
!
Did you get injured?
!
If you didn’t get injured in this section or the earlier section, then you’ll end seeing the below:
!
Stay Healthy
!
These are some of the most common football injuries. On a practical level, though, most NFL
players just do what they're told to get through an injury. And many often don't have much
control over their own medical records or bodies. The medical records are, literally, kept in a
back room, said Jackson, and players aren't always 100 percent sure what treatment they're
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42
getting, just whatever the trainer recommends. This can, for obvious reasons, come back to haunt
a player later.
!
Even if you aren't injured, staying on a team still depends on a lot of things, some of which are
your personal talent and ability. You've also got to be punctual to your many meetings, learn new
plays quickly, practice well, stay in shape, prove that you're tough and get along with the team. If
you're good enough, maybe you don't have to play nice but mostly the NFL expects you to
follow the crowd and fit in the mold.
!
"To succeed in the NFL, you have to just obey," said Jackson.
!
In the very last game of his first season, Jackson was called up and activated. He signed a new
contract and played that night. Then he was sent over to Euro NFL, a kind of grooming ground
for NFL rookies and up-and-comers. He may not have wanted to go, but he was in "yes, sir
mode," he said. "I took the back door into the NFL and wanted to work my ass off to prove it,"
he said.
!
At the time, Jackson said, he didn't think too much about the numbers or the bigger picture. He
just played, learned what he needed to learn and managed to stick around in the NFL for six
years. "I mastered that daily routine" of four-hour meetings and scripted practices, where you
have to "know how to deliver your lives," he said.
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"I saw a lot of my friends come and go, even those who were better," he said. "I thought I was
going to last forever."
!
But he didn't.
!
Did you get cut or traded?
!
If you did get injured, though, you’ll see this:
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Get Better
!
While players aren't allowed to be cut while they're on the injury list, which is explicitly outlined
in their contract, most teams don't want to hang on to someone who keeps having to rehab from
injuries.
!
"You have to know your body well enough to know what injuries you actually have to report,"
said Jackson.
!
For him, personally, that meant anything above the waist he mostly dealt with on his own. But
for anything below the belt, which would affect his running, he went in for treatment.
"Everybody gets hurt," he said. The real thing coaches want to see is how you respond to that
injury and how you come back.
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44
!
According to Levin, one of the biggest things the NFLPA deals with is injury appeals, when
players feel they were unfairly cut while injured. But players can still get cut at any point,
because they're not performing well, or there are other better players the team can sign, or they
just don't seem to fit with the coach's style.
!
Injuries are common in football. These are some of the most common:
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Figure 6: Screenshot of interactive module on injuries in football
!
Clicking ‘no’ lands you here:
!
The average NFL career is 3.5 years and it's full of highs and lows. "The NFL's a crazy horrible
business," said Holmes. "It's like indentured servitude."
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45
!
Unlike the NBA and many other pro leagues, he said, there are no guarantees and you can be cut
at anytime. "Never in any other business have I experienced anything as cutthroat," he said.
"There are entire departments devoted to finding guys to replace you."
!
Holmes comes from an NFL family. His brother plays for the Indianapolis Colts; his brother-in-
law, Troy Polamalu, has been on two of the Pittsburgh Steelers' Super Bowl teams. Holmes
knows what he's talking about when he says, "There's no loyalty in the NFL."
!
Often it's not a surprise when a player is cut. But sometimes they can be blindsided. "They tell
you to literally just empty your locker and leave. Fill up your garbage bag and thank you for your
service," said Jackson.
!
The only upside of the fact that the average career is 3.5 years is that most players don't bother to
put down roots.
!
When Jackson was traded from the 49ers to the Broncos for a conditional seventh round draft
pick, he was told, "Here's a plane ticket, you're flying out tonight." He stayed with the Broncos
for six years, then a new coach came in. As soon as he was medically cleared for an injury,
Jackson was cut.
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46
There is a person in nearly every team organization who is in charge of keeping a log of
available athletes. Reports go out about which players are cut or general managers can call
players' agents to find out how they're doing -- that is if they're ready to play for another team. Or
agents can call up the managers. After he was cut from the Broncos' squad in 2008, that's what
Jackson (or, rather, his agent) did.
!
Jackson would get a call from some team interested in him. He'd be told to get on such-and-such
a flight. He'd arrive and get taken to the training facility for a workout or to run through a series
of tests. "Often, they're bringing in three to four guys," he said. "Chances are they're not going to
like you," and then it's home again that night.
!
He kept doing that. He played briefly with the Cleveland Browns practice squad. He tried
signing with a United Football League team in Vegas. He even ordered some human growth
hormone, a banned performance-enhancing drug, hoping that he might be able to keep doing
what he knew how to do. It didn't work. Eventually, he had to move on and find a life after the
NFL.
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Are you prepared for life after the NFL?
!
If you had said that you did get cut or traded, then you’d learn about that process:
!
There is no guarantee in the NFL. "They can tap you on the shoulder any day," said Jackson.
"People sign huge contracts and never see a dime." That's why, said Levin, any guaranteed
money upfront is so important, because that may be most of the money a player ever actually
gets.
!
Often it's not a surprise when a player is cut. But sometimes they can be blindsided. "They tell
you to literally just empty your locker and leave. Fill up your garbage bag and thank you for your
service," said Jackson. The only upside of the fact that the average career is 3.5 years is that most
players don't bother to put down roots.
!
When Jackson was traded from the 49ers to the Broncos for a conditional seventh round draft
pick, he was told, "Here's a plane ticket, you're flying out tonight." He stayed with the Broncos
for six years, then a new coach came in. As soon as he was medically-cleared from an injury,
Jackson was cut.
!
There is a person in nearly every team organization who is in charge of keeping a log of
available athletes. Reports go out about which players have been cut or general managers can
call players' agents to find out how they're doing -- that is if they're ready to play for another
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48
team. Or agents can call up the managers. After he was cut from the Broncos' squad in 2008,
that's what Jackson (or, rather, his agent) did.
!
Jackson would get a call from some team interested in him. He'd be told to get on such-and-such
a flight. He'd arrive and get taken to the training facility for a workout or to run through a series
of tests. "Often, they're bringing in three to four guys," he said. "Chances are they're not going to
like you" and then it's home again that night.
!
He kept doing that. He played with the Cleveland Browns practice squad briefly. He tried signing
with a United Football League team in Vegas. He even ordered some human growth hormone, a
banned performance-enhancing drug, hoping that he might be able to keep doing what he knew
how to do. It didn't work. Eventually, he had to move on and find a life after the NFL.
!
Are you prepared for life after the NFL?
!
Clicking the button that suggests you are not prepared for life after the NFL, will bring you to
this information:
!
After the Game
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When do you give up? When do you call the dream over? "That's the $1 million question," said
Jackson. As long as teams are still calling and you're still getting workouts, you feel like you still
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49
have a shot. "I still believe right now I could play if I had to," even though he's been out of the
league since playing on the practice squad with the Browns in 2009.
!
"At some point, you have to move on." For Jackson, writing his book, Slow Getting Up, was a
good way to do that. For lots of players, though, it's harder to move on.
!
"You don't think about anything beyond being good at football," he said. "When that bubble
pops, it's a pretty surreal moment."
!
All of a sudden, said Jackson, you have to use your brain, when for years you've just been doing
what you're told. Most of the players have no degree, no plan, lots of injuries and a decent
amount of money. "It's a recipe for disaster," said Jackson.
!
"The money that gets thrown around doesn't feel real," he said. Players buy a house, a couple
cars, then they get cut from the team and there's nothing to pay those bills anymore.
!
Holmes, who benefitted from coming from a middle-class background, said that for lots of
players, who don't start out with anything, this new life in the NFL also comes with its own bills.
They have to buy everything, because they don't have any of it: clothes, somewhere to live, a car,
somewhere for their parents to live. And, then, they have lots of friends and relatives who need
money, and they don't want to say no. "I never had to deal with any of that," he said.
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It's also common for players to be surrounded by people they've known since before they were
famous, as a way to protect themselves. But then, Holmes said, those people are often yes-men,
scared of losing their meal ticket. And none of them, usually, know anything about how to
manage as much money as they're suddenly seeing. Whether that entourage is purposefully
milking a player or accidentally, the result is that as much as $1 million or more can just sort of
disappear. The number of professional athletes, especially NFL players, who go broke is well-
documented.
!
"You need to invest that in a way so you don't even need to think about it," said Holmes, which
most players don't. "The NFL doesn't do enough to protect the guys from agents and all these so-
called financial advisors," he said.
!
Plus, being in the biggest sports league in the country can warp a person's expectations about
what's normal. Starting over at a regular office job, earning $50,000/year is hard. "The real world
is not the NFL," said Jackson.
!
So, how'd it go?
!
If you said you are prepared for life after the NFL, then you’ll see this:
!
In 2007, after two years, Holmes was cut from the St. Louis Rams and left the NFL for good.
Today, he manages venture capital investments, runs a family investment office and founded a
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digital media company. Many guys are not as successful; they don't prepare for the time after the
NFL and, while they make good money in the league, the money isn't enough to last forever.
!
"It's good money, but it's not that much," said Holmes. Players don't make as much as people
think and reported endorsement deals tend to be inflated, he said. There's really only five to 10
guys in the whole league who bring in over $1 million in endorsements. Typically, he said,
endorsement deals are in the low six-figures.
!
That's why, when you're a player, Holmes said, you have to use the opportunity while you have it
and start planning for after. "Go talk to the owner. Go talk to people have the real money, who've
amassed real wealth," said Holmes.
!
More and more often players are trying to find other ways to monetize this opportunity. And that
can mean trying to create their own brand or use social media and the internet to make money.
But that's hard to do. "You have to have a crazy big following, which most guys don't have," said
Holmes.
!
"These guys definitely all deserve to make the money they make," said Jackson.
!
Jackson hasn't run out of money and is starting to make a living as a writer, but he has to be
smart about his budgeting. "And that sucks," he said. "The NFL warped my baseline." Playing
professional football is a lot of highs and a lot of lows, "and that's unhealthy," said Jackson.
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!
Holmes, who benefitted from coming from a middle-class background, said that for lots of
players, who don't start out with anything, this new life in the NFL also comes with its own bills.
They have to buy everything, because they don't have any of it: clothes, somewhere to live, a car,
somewhere for their parents to live. And, then, they have lots of friends and relatives who need
money, and they don't want to say no. "I never had to deal with any of that," he said.
!
It's also common for players to be surrounded by people they've known since before they were
famous, as a way to protect themselves. But, then, Holmes said, those people are often yes-men,
scared of losing their meal ticket. And none of them, usually, know anything about how to
manage as much money as they're suddenly seeing. Whether that entourage is purposefully
milking a player or accidentally, the result is that as much as $1 million or even more can just
sort of disappear. The number of professional athletes, especially NFL players, who go broke is
well-documented.
!
"You need to invest that in a way so you don't even need to think about it," said Holmes, which
most don't. "The NFL doesn't do enough to protect the guys from agents and all these so-called
financial advisors," he said.
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So, how'd it go?
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No matter what option you pick, you will ultimately end up at this final conclusion:
!
It's impossible for Jackson to say if the playing in the NFL was worth it. "Everything has its sour
and its sweet," he said. "It's so wrapped up in my being and what I felt compelled to do. I loved
competing on the highest stage."
!
He said, "I don't know anything else."
!
The problem, he said, isn't football. He still loves football, but he wishes the athletes were
humanized more and not just cogs in the story of the NFL. "The real problem is that we hold up
this fairytale, but it's not real," said Jackson.
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Here are some of the players on the Denver Broncos' roster Jackson's last year and where they
are now:
Figure 7: Screenshot of interactive module at the end of the football section
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IV . Track and Field
!
The last section is the track and field section, which focuses on how contracts work in individual
sports. To get started, click on the running icon.
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Meet Nick Symmonds
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In 2013, Nick Symmonds won a silver medal in the 800 meters at the IAAF Track and Field
World Championships in Moscow. It was the high point in a professional running career that has
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55
spanned more than a decade. Because running is an individual sport, Symmonds has also worked
to turn those accomplishments into an actual career, creating a name for himself with outspoken
social media posts and appearances on America Ninja Warrior. In sports like running, said Leigh
Steinberg, the super-agent about whom the 1996 film Jerry Maguire is based, "it's all a matter of
endorsements." To secure those, it's important to market yourself and create a brand.
Figure 8: Screenshot of the beginning of the track and field section
!
Symmonds didn't always think he'd make a career out of running. "I grew up playing soccer,"
said Symmonds. But he was too small to be successful at a high level in soccer, he said, and in
high school he found his way to the cross-country and track teams.
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"I didn't love distance running at first," said Symmonds. "But I liked that hard work pays off." At
Bishop Kelly High School in Boise, Idaho, Symmonds won high school state titles in the 800
meters, 1600 meters, 3200 meters and as part of the 4-x-400 meter relay.
!
Still, running was just part of what Symmonds wanted to do. Despite his success in high school,
Symmonds didn't run at a Division I college. Instead, he picked Willamette University, a small
Division III program in Oregon. He wanted to study biochemistry, and "lots of DI schools
wouldn't let you do that [and run on the track team]," he said. He wasn't sure if running was
going to be a long-term plan for life, or if he was good enough. He wanted to try other things too.
!
Are you good enough to run in college?
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If you say that you are aren’t good enough to run in college, then you’ll see:
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Because running is a time-based sport, getting recruited to any college is actually fairly
straightforward. There aren't intense scouting networks like in baseball or football. Instead, there
are simply standards that you either meet, or don't meet. While decisions about scholarships are
ultimately at a coach's discretion, hitting the standards is a good place to start.
!
For example, here are the standards Symmonds would have had to meet if he wanted to run at
the University of Southern California. His high school personal best of 1 minute, 53 seconds for
the 800 meters wouldn't have been good enough to earn any scholarship. He might have been
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invited to walk on to the team. The benefit of a Division III school was that Symmonds was able
to get more attention and develop as an athlete in the smaller program. Instead of being a walk-
on at a big Division I program, he won seven NCAA Division III titles.
!
Because running is accessible to everyone, it's actually common for people to start running well
after college. According to Running USA's national survey (Running USA, 2013), the average
age of runners is around 40. Now, of course, most of those people aren't ever going to make a
living jogging around their neighborhoods. But if you get good enough after college or out of
college, and you create a big enough following for yourself, then you might still be able to find a
sponsor. In fact, according to a survey done at the U.S. National Championships in 2013
(Huntley, 2013), slightly fewer than half of the athletes were actually over 25 years old.
!
According to that same survey, done by the Track and Field Athletes Association, the
overwhelming amount of athletes' funding comes from shoe contracts (with the next most
common source of income coming from an outside or part-time job).
!
Because there are rules about what track and field athletes can wear in a meet, the main spot a
runner is able show off his or her sponsored gear is on the shoes and the shorts and tops he or she
wears. That means signing a contract with one of the big running shoe companies is traditionally
the best way to fund a running career.
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Did you sign a shoe contract?
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If you, earlier, had said that you were good enough to run in college, then you’d end up here:
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The Old College Try
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For Symmonds, there were a few downsides to opting to go to a Division III school. There
simply isn't as much money available. There are no scholarships for sports in Division III,
though Symmonds did eventually earn a partial academic scholarship. And the facilities often
aren't as nice as at Division I or Division II schools. "You were on your own pretty much," said
Symmonds.
!
Division I track and field programs can offer up to 12.6 scholarships for the men's team and 18
scholarships for women. Division II programs have 12.69 scholarships for men and another
12.69 for women. Per NCAA rules, Division III programs do not have athletic scholarships,
though they can offer financial aid packages. (High school athletes can also play at smaller
NAIA schools and junior/community colleges, with the hope of improving their times and either
earning a scholarship at a bigger school or signing a sponsorship contract if they attract enough
attention.)
!
Because running is a time-based sport, getting recruited to any college is actually fairly
straightforward. There aren't intense scouting networks like in baseball or football. Instead, there
!
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59
are simply standards that you either meet or don't meet. While decisions about scholarships are
ultimately at the coach's discretion, hitting the standards is a good place to start.
!
For example, here are the standards Symmonds would have had to meet if he wanted to run at
the University of Southern California. His high school personal best of 1 minute, 53 seconds for
the 800 meters wouldn't have been good enough to earn any scholarships. He might have been
invited to walk-on to the team. The benefit of a Division III school was that Symmonds was able
to get more attention and develop as an athlete in the small program. Instead of being a walk-on
at a big Div. I program, he won seven NCAA Division III titles.
!
"My career would have been accelerated slightly if I'd gone to a DII," said Symmonds. He
probably would have had success earlier in his 20s, he said, but he might have also gotten hurt
with the intense collegiate training.
!
Going into his senior year at Willamette, Symmonds was ranked 50th in the U.S. in the 800. He
thought: What if I really made running a priority? Instead of trying lots of different things,
Symmonds focused on running and put all his time and effort into training. His 800 time dropped
from 1 minute, 48 seconds to 1 minute, 45 seconds, putting him second in the country.
!
"I knew I'd be able to sign a contract and train for the 2008 Olympics," said Symmonds, which
was his main goal. Lots of agents contacted him, but his college coach for the previous year,
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Kelly Sullivan, put him in touch with an agent he knew and Symmonds has been with Chris
Layne since.
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Knowing he was going to sign a sponsorship contract and actually deciding what to sign were
very different things. Trying to understand how sponsorship contracts work in running is
difficult. "There's no information, no structure. It's very disorganized," he said. "It's one of the
most amateur run professional sports."
!
According to a survey done of athletes at the 2013 USA National Championships, the
overwhelming amount of athletes' funding comes from shoe contracts (with the next most
common source of income coming from an outside or part-time job).
!
Because there are rules about what track and field athletes can wear in a meet, the main spot a
runner can show off his or her sponsored gear is on the shoes and the shorts and tops he or she
wears. That means signing a contract with one of the big running shoe companies is traditionally
the best way to fund a running career.
!
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Did you sign a shoe contract?
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If you didn’t sign a shoe contract, then clicking ‘no’ brings you to this point:
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Because most track and field sponsorship deals are individual, there's not much information
shared among athletes and there's no organized union-negotiated contract like there is in team
sports, such as football or baseball. "There's very little transparency in track and field," said
Symmonds. "Everyone's doing closed-door deals."
!
In fact, it is rare for there to be any public information about how much track and field athletes
make. USA Track and Field Foundation board director Jack Wickens did the first comprehensive
look at how much track and field athletes make with a study of income sources in 2012.
(Wickens, 2012) He found that approximately 50 percent of athletes ranked in the top 10 in the
country in their event make less than $15,000/year from the sport and only approximately 20
percent of those athletes ranked in top 10 in the country in their event make more than $50,000/
year.
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Most of that money, whatever there is of it, is going to come from a major shoe company
sponsorship. The updated survey done in 2013 of professional track and field athletes (Huntley,
2013) found that nearly 80 percent of the runners at the USA National Championships had either
zero or just one sponsor. But at least a few dozen athletes have multiple sponsors.
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The study also found that the main sources of income were either shoe contracts or an outside, or
part-time, job. But athletes also relied on grant money, other sponsor money, prize money and
family support. One athlete responded to the question by answering that he or she had no main
source of income.
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Have you pursued other sources of income?
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If you did sign a shoe contract, earlier, then that will take you to this:
Figure 9: Screenshot of the running section of the website
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Behind Closed Doors
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Because most track and field sponsorship deals are individual, there's not much information
shared among athletes and there's no organized union-negotiated contract, like there is in team
sports, such as football or baseball. "There's very little transparency in track and field," said
Symmonds. "Everyone's doing closed-door deals."
!
In fact, it is rare for there to be any public information about how much track and field athletes
make. USA Track and Field Foundation board director Jack Wickens did the first comprehensive
look at how much track and field athletes make with a study of income sources in 2012.
(Wickens, 2012) He found that approximately 50 percent of athletes who ranked in the top 10 in
the country in their event make less than $15,000/year from the sport and only approximately 20
percent of those athletes ranked in top 10 in the country in their respective events make more
than $50,000/year.
!
When Symmonds was about to graduate, his agent went to the major shoe companies and tried to
find a good deal. Since shoe companies provide the majority of runners' incomes, ideally you'd
have a couple of them interested and you, as a runner, would pick one, but that's not what
happened for Symmonds.
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"I shot myself in the foot," he said. He wanted to train with a Nike-sponsored coach, Frank
Gagliano. Along with sponsoring athletes, some companies also sponsor certain coaches or
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training groups. It's generally the case that the athletes under that coach or in that group are also
with that same sponsoring company. Because Symmonds had announced that he wanted to train
with a Nike-sponsored coach to prepare for the Olympic team, he was basically saying that he
was going to ultimately go with Nike, so no other companies were interested. There was no
bidding war.
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"I probably got 50 cents on the dollar," said Symmonds of his initial Nike deal. He moved to
Eugene and started training with the Oregon Track Club's elite squad.
!
Symmonds re-negotiated his contract after the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where he made the
semifinals of the 800. But, then, in 2014 his contract with Nike came to an end. Brooks, which
has been filling out its elite distance athletes roster, made him an offer and Nike didn't match it.
Now Symmonds is a Brooks-sponsored athlete, meaning he also left the Nike-sponsored Oregon
Track Club and traded in all his Nike gear for new Brooks stuff.
!
Runners' contracts, including the one Symmonds had with Nike, can either include all or some of
these things: gear, travel stipends, performance bonuses, base salary. Contracts can be paid out
monthly or quarterly and typically include suspension, termination and reduction clauses. A
reduction clause means that an athlete can lose a portion of their payment from the sponsor for a
variety of infractions: not achieving a certain standing in world championships or large races, not
competing for a given amount of time or doing something that reflects badly on the company.
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In a blog post by Amy Yoder Begley, a 2008 Olympian in the 10,000 meters, she wrote that,
"Reductions can range from 10% to 50%. They can be tied to lack of performances, lack of
appearances, not being ranked in the USA or world in your event, not making a team, criminal
activity or drug use.” (Yoder Begley, 2012)
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Yoder Begley also wrote that she, at times, received word retroactively that her salary was being
reduced and one time found out her contract was suspended without warning because she'd been
injured and hadn't competed for months.
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Symmonds said his current contract, by contrast, has a base guaranteed salary even if he gets
hurts. It will likely work out to be the same amount of money, but with a guaranteed salary he
said it's easier to get a home or a car loan or to show a bank that you have an income. That
stability was what made Brooks' offer appealing over Nike's when the time came to evaluate his
options. "No bank is going to offer you a loan with a contract like that," said Symmonds.
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Symmonds said that a friend showed his potential contract to a lawyer and was told absolutely
not to sign it, because there were too many things he could lose money over and it demanded too
much from him. But the guy had no other options and signed anyway.
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"We have very, very little power," said Symmonds. That's why more athletes are turning to
multiple sources of income.
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Have you pursued other sources of income?
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If you did not chose to pursue other sources of income either here or earlier, then clicking that
option would be you to this:
!
A runner's agent helps translate athletic ability into money. "It's an agent's role to design a
marketing plan and execute," said Steinberg. Because a runner's income is entirely dependent on
his or her ability to market oneself both to companies and to the public, having multiple irons in
the fire is an important part of creating a long career. If you don't, you better hope you have a
supportive family.
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Most athletes develop a relationship with the reps they work with at their sponsoring companies.
He or she gets to know the people involved in the companies and can feel like part of the
organization. But a track and field athlete is not an employee. He or she is simply an independent
contractor. That, of course, can also come with its own perks, said Symmonds, who has turned
himself into an LLC. You can, essentially, make yourself a business, write off expenses, court
other sponsors outside your main shoe sponsor (if your shoe contract allows it) and pursue other
avenues of income.
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That is increasingly the case.
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The International Olympic Committee, the International Association of Athletics Federation and
USA Track and Field all have their own rules about what athletes can and can't do, and what
they're allowed to wear in races governed by each of those groups. Generally, those rules don't
allow athletes to wear logos beyond specific guidelines for what is on their race singlet and
shoes. At races where the athlete is representing the national team, they typically must wear
national team uniforms only, no conflicting outside sponsors. USATF did not respond to requests
for comment.
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"We've fought really really hard to get rid of those guidelines," said Symmonds, who has been an
outspoken critic of USATF and the rules that govern professional track and field athletes.
Symmonds auctioned off a spot on his arm in 2012. Hanson Dodge Creative paid $11,100 to put
a temporary tattoo on Symmond's arm, which he had to cover up with white tape during races.
Adam Nelson, an Olympic gold medalist in the shot put, auctioned off a sponsorship on eBay in
2005, ultimately getting $12,000 from a medical technology firm.
!
But some of these things may be changing. The full IOC is currently considering changing a rule
that bans athletes from appearing in advertisements during a blackout period around the
Olympics. Traditionally athletes had only been allowed to appear in ads for companies that
sponsor the Olympics, which can be difficult for athletes whose major sponsors are not also
Olympics sponsored.
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"I plan on wearing a lot of logos [in 2015]," said Symmonds. He's wants to keep his options
open.
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So, how'd you do?
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If you had clicked ‘yes, you did pursue other sources of income,’ then the website would take you
to this:
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Show Me the Money
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Wickens found that while it varies within track and field, typically the top few athletes do
extremely well and the top 10 athletes in the world in an event can make up to $100,000
annually. But runners ranked 10 to 25 in the world typically "feast or famine," said Wickens,
making $10,000 to $60,000 depending on the year. (Wickens, 2012) Athletes outside the top 25
in the world nearly always have another job. "An awful lot of them never make a good living
their entire career," he said.
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What you make doesn't just depend on how fast you are or how good your story is. It also
depends on what events you compete in. For the most part, the only events that the public really
cares about in the U.S. are the 100 meters, the mile, and the marathon. "Those are the three," said
Symmonds. Plenty of athletes who could compete in multiple distances will make that decision
as a purely economical one. Why be a 5K runner if you can make more money as a marathoner?
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69
!
"Even your least-marketable marathoner is more marketable than your best 400 meter runner,"
said Symmonds.
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According to Wickens' study, marathoners and distance runners can make the most money
because of prize purses and appearance fees in large marathons, and because of the wide range of
race possibilities from the 5,000 meters to the half-marathon. (Wickens, 2012)
!
In addition to a major sponsor, athletes can try to attract smaller sponsorships and can also apply
for grants or stipend funding from the U.S. Olympic Committee and/or from USA Track and
Field.
!
USATF did not respond to requests for comment. However, according to USATF's protocols for
stipend requests, athletes fall into four separate tiers based on their world ranking. Tier 1 athletes
are those who medaled at either the 2012 Olympics or the 2013 World Championships, or those
who achieved a top ten ranking in the world in their event for 2014 or a top five ranking for
2013. These athletes can qualify for $9,000 as a stipend, another $2,000 stipend to pay for a
coach and $2,000 to pay for qualified medical expenses.
!
The lowest tier of athletes can apply for and possibly qualify for $500 to pay medical expenses
and up to $2,000 as an athlete stipend, while post-collegiate athletes are eligible for just the
medical expense stipend. There are also travel grants and small tuition grants available.
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!
In addition to some sponsorship money, jobs and development grants, athletes can earn prize
money. Prize money tends to be biggest at marathons, but there are also road races and
championships races with prize purses. The competitive, international Diamond League track
and field meets award $10,000 to each event winner and $40,000 to the overall season winner in
each discipline. And some athletes, if they're well-known enough or well-marketed enough, can
get speaking or appearance fees. Symmonds recently published a book, Life Outside the Oval
Office, and has gotten paid to blog or write in the past. He views his job not as a runner, but as
the owner of a business.
Figure 10: Screenshot of the end of the website
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So, how'd you do?
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The final section, no matter how you get there, creates a conclusion for the track and athlete
portion of the website:
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Congrats! You're an Athlete
!
Nick Symmonds LLC is a business. He tweets pictures like this one because his sponsors like
him to promote the company and his fans like to see what he does. He wrote a book and a
column for Runner's World. He does a podcast with a fellow runner. He appeared on American
Ninja Warrior and started a line of caffeinated gum for runners.
!
"Athletes increasingly realize that they need to market themselves, build up their social media
following and their brand," said Wickens, "along with performing on the track, to increase their
value to sponsors."
!
While many contracts with companies can be as small as simply giving an athlete free gear and
paying for travel, a few can be as big as $1 million in cash. (Puma is reportedly paying Usain
Bolt about $9 million.) In recent years, though, more companies are shifting away from small
contracts, said Symmonds, because they'd rather have full-time athletes than athletes working
part-time jobs and dreaming about making the Olympics. It's getting more common for big shoe
companies not to want to commit anything less than $20,000.
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!
According to Wickens' study, the top 10 athletes in the world in the sprint events can make
between $75,000 and $200,000/year. The top 10 in the world in the hurdles, decathlon and 800
make around $30,000 to $100,000. The top 15 distance runners in the world, who don't run
marathons, make around $100,000 to $150,000. Comparative marathoners can make about
$200,000/year. Athletes in the field events only make about $20,000 to $75,000 for being the ten
best in the world. And race walkers make virtually nothing, no matter how good they are.
!
Wickens said, though, that it appears that sponsorship opportunities have gotten harder, though
there are more smaller and non-traditional companies coming into the sport, like Hoka One One
and Oiselle. Meb Keflezighi, who won the 2014 Boston Marathon, is sponsored by Sketchers as
that company tries to move into the running market. Still, it's hard to put together a career, even
if you're good at what you do.
!
"It's much, much worse than it was for me when I came out of school in 2000," said Symmonds.
!
4. Conclusion
!
Interactive websites are increasingly becoming the norm and nowhere more so than in sports
reporting. Sports-related issues tends to be a popular digital topic, because nothing quite drives
users to keep clicking like the draw of sports. When that combines with the interest the public
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has in money, then it seems like the natural medium to explore all the ins and outs of the finances
behind the scenes.
!
It’s hard, though, to draw just one conclusion from the three stories reported here. The minor
league system, with so many levels to work through, has its problems and is certainly,hard to
make a living in without higher wages or a union, but it also exists because people want it to
exist. Minor league players are hoping they’ll be one of the few to make it. That NFL players
struggle, at times, post-retirement is not new information. But few truly understand all the things
that add up to that later. It’s not just athletes making bad decisions. And while most people know
that individual athletes rely on sponsors, they have no idea how those contracts actually are
negotiated or what clauses are included in those contracts.
!
The goal of the Going for Green website is to let users explore all these issues in as much or as
2
little detail as they desire. Click through one time, or click through every different option you
can. The website also leaves itself open to add additional sports sections in the future, if there are
other questions to explore. Sports and money are never going away.
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http://www.komara.ascjportfolio.org/FinalProject/
2
Bibliography
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Futterman, Matthew. 2011. “Has Baseball’s Moment Passed?” Wall Street Journal, March 31,
2011. http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703712504576232753156582750?
mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle
%2FSB10001424052748703712504576232753156582750.html
!
Huntley, Tim. “2013 Track and Field Elite Athlete Survey Results.” Track and Field Athlete
Association, July 12, 2013. http://trackandfieldathletesassociation.org/site/2013-track-and-field-
elite-athlete-survey-results/
!
Keener, Stephen. 2005. “Too Much Baseball is Not a Good Thing.” Little League Baseball World
Series Program, 2005. http://www.littleleague.org/media/llnewsarchive/Unknown_Dates/
too_much_baseball.htm
!
Kelley, Bruce and Carchia, Carl. 2013. “Hey, data data — swing!” ESPN, July 11, 2013. http://
espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/9469252/hidden-demographics-youth-sports-espn-magazine
!
Merkel, Donna. 2013. “Youth sport: positive and negative impact on young athletes.” Open
Access Journal of Sports Medicine, May 31, 2013. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/
PMC3871410/
!
National Alliance for Youth Sports, and National Recreation and Park Association.
“Recommendations for Communities: Examining the violent and abusive behavior plaguing
youth sports.” National Summit on Raising Community Standards in Children’s Sports, 2002.
http://www.nays.org/CMSContent/File/nays_community_recommendations.pdf
!
NFL Players Association. 2011. “Collective Bargaining Agreement.” Aug. 4, 2011. https://
nflpaweb.blob.core.windows.net/media/Default/PDFs/General/
2011_Final_CBA_Searchable_Bookmarked.pdf
!
Running USA. “2013 State of the Sport.” April 21, 2013. http://www.runningusa.org/national-
runner-survey
!
Senne v. MLB. Case No. 3:14-cv-00608, Feb. 7, 2014. (United States District Court, Northern
District of California)
!
Wickens, Jack. 2012. “How Much Money Do Track and Field Athletes Make?” Track and Field
Athlete Association, May 8, 2012. http://trackandfieldathletesassociation.org/site/how-much-
money-do-track-and-field-athletes-make/
!
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Yoder Begley, Amy. 2012. “The Business of Track and Field Contracts.” Women Talk Sports,
Oct. 8, 2012. http://womentalksports.com/the-business-of-track-field-contracts/
!
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Abstract (if available)
Abstract
This thesis examines the economic issues surrounding athletes’ careers in different sports, namely what affects how much money an athlete can make and how long a career he or she can have. This is done with an interactive website (https://www.komara.ascjportfolio.org/FinalProject) that allows users to click through various scenarios and arrive at a range of outcomes. ❧ I started this project with the question that so many people seem to throw around during big sporting events: Could I do that? While 45 million kids play some kind of organized sport, over 70 percent of them will quit by the time they get to high school (Merkel, 2013). Yet many adults harbor secret sports fantasy and espouse on Monday night quarterback theories about what they would do if they had the chance. What those same people often fail to understand is the complexity that goes into making a career out of playing any sport. The answer to ‘could you do what the professional athletes do?’ is often: no. ❧ Through interviews with athletes in baseball, football and track and field, as well as with agents, players’ union representatives and lawyers, this thesis creates a kind of ‘choose your own adventure’ game that follows multiple athletes through their careers. Along the way, by clicking on boxes that open alternative options, the users can see how that career could have gone differently if the athlete hadn’t gotten hurt or had signed a bigger contract upfront. The interactivity of the website is ideal for a topic that has so many different paths a person can take. ❧ While it’s not designed so that any one user has to read everything on the website—since you can venture down one branch, hit a dead end and the re-trace your steps—each path can also be considered on its merits. No matter what button you click, you will have a complete story about the challenges an athlete faces from precocious youth to talented professional. ❧ The hope is that, at the end, you will both be better informed about some of the specific details about how careers work in large team sports, like football or baseball, or smaller individual sports, like track and field, and that the interactive website, itself, highlights the complexity of the experience.
Linked assets
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
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Asset Metadata
Creator
O'Mara, Kelly
(author)
Core Title
Going for green: how athletes make a career out of sports
School
Annenberg School for Communication
Degree
Master of Arts
Degree Program
Specialized Journalism
Publication Date
04/20/2015
Defense Date
04/20/2015
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
Athletes,MLB,Money,NFL,OAI-PMH Harvest,Sports
Format
application/pdf
(imt)
Language
English
Contributor
Electronically uploaded by the author
(provenance)
Advisor
Bustamante, Peggy (
committee chair
), Abrahamson, Alan Y. (
committee member
), Fellenzer, Jeff (
committee member
)
Creator Email
kellydomara@gmail.com,komara@usc.edu
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-553219
Unique identifier
UC11297755
Identifier
etd-OMaraKelly-3338.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-553219 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
etd-OMaraKelly-3338.pdf
Dmrecord
553219
Document Type
Thesis
Format
application/pdf (imt)
Rights
O'Mara, Kelly
Type
texts
Source
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Access Conditions
The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...
Repository Name
University of Southern California Digital Library
Repository Location
USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA
Tags
MLB
NFL