Tag: money

How valuable is a signed baseball bat?

Dear Sports Fan,

How valuable does signed stuff actually get? If, for *cough* example, I had a little league bat signed by Brooks Robinson in the 80’s, would that be valuable or just something that a million other kids had?

Thanks,
Justin

Dear Justin,

Brooks Robinson is an awesome dude. During a 23 year Major League Baseball career, all as a member of the Baltimore Orioles, he went to 18 All-Star games and won 16 consecutive Gold Glove awards as a third baseman. He played in the World Series four times and won it twice. He had a great nicknames: The Human Vacuum Cleaner and Mr. Hoover. Elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983, he in one of only 16 people to be voted in during their first eligible year. At 78, Robinson is still active in the baseball community, serving as head of the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association. There is a 1,500 pound statue of him in downtown Baltimore. And yet, unless there is something particularly special about the signed bat you have, it’s probably not worth very much.

Sports autographs can mean big money, with the most valuable signatures going for millions of dollars, but they’re also big business. Memorabilia companies arrange for athletes to sign lots and lots of balls, uniforms, bats, gloves, baseball cards, and posters. As a result, the vast majority of signatures are not worth all that much. There are a multitude of factors that effect how much a signed item is worth but the underlying principle is that the more rare something is, the more valuable it is. Here are some of the factors that effect your bat:

  • Is it authentic and authenticated? — Two different things, an authentic item is one that is both real (the bat is a bat, not a loaf of bread shaped into a bat) and really signed. An authenticated item is one that has been certified to be authentic by one of a number of companies that exist for this sole purpose.
  • Is it game-used? — A bat that was used in a game by Robinson is worth more than one that wasn’t. Of the bats that weren’t, those that were produced for him to use in a game are worth more than those that were produced primarily so he could sign them before being sold to the public.
  • Is there something special about your item? — Did Robinson use it to hit during a memorable game? Was it the last he ever used? Or the first? Did he set a record with it? Use it to injure an offensive pitcher? Is it a brand he didn’t normally use? Is he someone who rarely ever signed bats? Again, rarity converts to value when it comes to signed items.

The Professional Sports Authenticator’s website has a handy chart showing the estimated value of “normal” signed items from a large number of professional baseball players, including Brooks Robinson. It suggests that your bat, if authentic and authenticated and in good condition, would be worth $100. If only you had something from the next Robinson on the list… Jackie Robinson! That estimate seems about right, if a little high, based on a search of sold Ebay signed Brooks Robinson bats that ranged from around $25 to $150.

You could sell it and probably make a little money. Although, since brand new baseball bats on Amazon are going for between $20 and $60 themselves, you’re almost better off just keeping it and using it as a baseball bat!

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Why do sports leagues have All-Star games?

Dear Sports Fan,

Why do sports leagues have All-Star games?

Thanks,
Greg

Dear Greg,

With the NBA All-Star game coming up soon, it’s a good time to tackle your question. All-Star games are an exhibition that many sports leagues put on in the middle of their seasons. Based on voting by fans, coaches, or some combination of the two, the best and most popular players are selected to play a game in mixed teams against each other. These games take many shapes and have different histories, but the common theme is that they generally lack the competitive nature typical of professional sports. They are essentially an entertainment, not a competition, and they are often accompanies by a host of other sports related competitions. All-Star games are loved by some fans, hated by others, and both loved and hated by a third group. They are more successful in some sports than others. So, why do sports leagues have All-Star games? Like any good child of children of the 1960s, my short answer is: follow the money.

From the start, All-Star games have been about money. The roots of today’s All-Star games can be found in games that were quite literally about money — benefit games. The NHL seems to have been on the forefront in this department. Wikipedia lists several early benefit games including a 1908 game to raise money for the family of a player who had drowned, a 1934 game to benefit a player who had his career (and almost life) ended in a violent hit, a 1937 game in honor of a player who had his leg shattered and died soon afterwards, and a 1939 game to benefit another drowned player. From raising money for a particular cause, All-Star games soon became about raising money directly or indirectly for the league itself.

Wikipedia tells us that the first professional league to have an All-Star game was Major League Baseball which held what they thought was going to be a one-time event in 1933 as part of Chicago’s World Fair. (quick side-note, if you haven’t read Erik Larson’s book about the fair, The Devil in the White City, you should!) History.com has a good article about the game, in which they claim that, “the event was designed to bolster the sport and improve its reputation during the darkest years of the Great Depression.” In the three years before the All-Star game, baseball’s attendance had dropped by “40 percent, while the average player’s salary fell by 25 percent.” Teams were experimenting with all sorts of promotions to try to bring fans and money back into the game and while Major League Baseball donated the proceeds of the All-Star game to charity, they surely profited indirectly from the attention it garnered. The All-Star game was a success, with hundreds of thousands of fans casting votes for which players they wanted to see and the top vote-getter, Babe Ruth, hitting a home run during the game. After the success of the 1933 game, baseball decided to make the All-Star game an annual tradition.

Other professional leagues in the United States soon followed along: the NFL in 1938, the NHL in 1947, and the NBA in 1951. For newer leagues, like Major League Soccer, the WNBA, and Major League Lacrosse, the inclusion of an All-Star game must have seemed like an obvious move. It seems like the All-Star game is primarily an American thing with some international sports leagues following along, but not all of them. The world’s most popular leagues — all soccer leagues, of course: the British Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga, and the Italian Serie A don’t have All-Star games. The Canadian Football League had one on and off from the 1950s but has not had one since 1988.

The format of All-Star games and accompanying competitive side-dishes have been tweaked over and over over the years to try to make the games slightly more competitive and therefore more entertaining to watch. These innovations seem to have generally moved in waves. Early on, some All-Star games were between last year’s championship team and a mixed team of players from other teams. After that, the now standard game between two mixed teams based on conference or league came into fashion. Two other formats that have been experimented with in the hopes of ginning up some competitive juices have been teams based on geographic origin (often the United States or North America vs. the rest of the world) or having teams chosen by two players or former players alternatively picking from the pool of All-Stars. I’m not sure that either of these have been very successful. The more successful though rare and extreme version of this is to actually invite a foreign team to play against a team made up of All-Stars. This happened very successfully in 1979 and 1987 in the NHL when teams of NHL All-Stars played against a Soviet national team. It’s hard to replicate that success because it was so reliant on the Cold War. Major League Soccer’s All-Star team plays against a European club team which kind of works but also is an admission of how weak the MLS is in comparison to other leagues. All of these innovations are intended to make the game more competitive. Perhaps the most extreme attempt came in 2003, when Major League Baseball took the extraordinary step of awarding home field advantage in the World Series to the league whose team won the All-Star game.

All-Star games are not only an opportunity for professional sports leagues to attract attention and earn money, they are also great opportunities for players. Players on the NBA All-Star teams this year will make $25,000 for playing in the game and another $25,000 if their team wins the game. The side-show events like the dunk contest and three point contest have their own purses that go to the individual winners of those competitions. Like for winning the Super Bowl, players may also have negotiated bonuses in their contracts for making the All-Star game.

The NBA All-Star game, which takes place this weekend in New York City, is definitely the biggest and most visible of the professional All-Star games in the United States. Check back in later today for a beginner’s guide to all of its elements.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

What do football players earn from winning the Super Bowl?

Dear Sports Fan,

What do football players earn from winning the Super Bowl? From the looks of abject despair on the faces of the losers and joy on the faces of the winners, it’s hard for me to imagine that they’re playing just for love of the game.

Thanks,
Devin

Dear Devin,

You sound awfully cynical about the motives of professional football players! You’re right that the players in the Super Bowl were not just playing for love of the game but my guess is that the joy and excitement or despair and anger you saw in the final moments of the Super Bowl were more purely motivated by a desire to win than you expect. There’s a long argument to be had there but instead, let’s focus on the other aspect of your question: what do football players earn from winning the Super Bowl? As with many questions of money, the truth is surprisingly elusive. There are lots of hard-to-know or define details about the potential financial benefit of winning a Super Bowl. There are also some very well known parts of the equation. We’ll start with those.

The National Football League (NFL) itself has a set group of financial rewards that go to players who play in each round of the playoffs, including the Super Bowl. Here are those figures:

  • Wild Card round – $22,000 for members of wild card teams and $24,000 for members of division winning teams.
  • Divisional round – $24,000
  • Championship round – $44,000
  • Super Bowl – $49,000 for members of the losing team and $97,000 for members of the winning team.

There are a complicated set of rules about which players are eligible to receive playoff money. Although the National Football Post has a detailed explanation of how it works here, probably all we need to know is that some amount is given to players who were injured during the season. Even a player who was traded away from a playoff team during the season, like former member of the Seahawks, Percy Harvin, might collect some money. In addition to the amounts above, the NFL sets aside $5,000 per player for a Super Bowl ring. This may not seem like a lot, but the rings are not an insubstantial financial reward, although most players probably regard theirs as mementos rather than an investment. According to Brad Tuttle in his Time article on the topic:

Then we must add in the fact that each of the 150 or so players and coaches on the winning team gets a blingy Super Bowl ring. The NFL allocates $5,000 per ring, but the winning teams are known to spend much more on them. Given how rare and collectible they are, a Super Bowl ring is easily valued at $50,000 to $75,000 and sometimes is worth in the hundreds of thousands if it’s owned by a notable player or coach.

Players do not generally earn salary during the playoffs. At first, it seems awful to ask players to risk their bodies and minds in playoff games without being paid for it, but if you look at it another way, it seems reasonable. Only 12 of 32 teams make the playoffs. If I were an NFL player, I would be far more angry if my salary was only paid to me in full if my team made the playoffs. Whether it’s literally paid during the 17-week regular season or over the 22-week season with the playoffs, or even in even chunks across the entire year would not matter as much. Still, this split between regular season salaries and playoff  payouts from the NFL does lead to some curious differences. Bloomberg has a beautifully illustrated article by David Ingold and Adam Pearce that points out the absurdity of the Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, who is still on his relatively limited rookie contract, being able to make up to 20% extra during the playoffs while New England Quarterback Tom Brady capping out at only an additional 1.1% because his normal salary is so big. If it were really all about the NFL payouts, Brady wouldn’t care nearly as much as Wilson about winning the Super Bowl.

There are many other financial factors though. Players can negotiate for performance-based incentives in their contract. Some of these may be playoff or even Super Bowl incentives. It’s hard to know what all of these are for the players on the Patriots and Seahawks, but you can get a hint by looking into each player’s contract history in a tool like Spotrac. Take a look at Patriots tight end, Rob Gronkowski. The last time the team made the Super Bowl, in 2011, he got a $800,000 incentive bonus. I don’t know specifically what that was for, but he didn’t get anything like that much in any other year. Spotrac lists out the performance incentives for Patriots defensive lineman Vince Wilfork for 2014 and they included a $2.5 million bonus for playing 70% of the team’s snaps and making the divisional playoffs. We don’t know the particulars of every player contract but it’s safe to say that some have significant playoff or Super Bowl bonuses worked into them.

The last piece of financial reward is the hardest to quantify. Winning a Super Bowl makes you more famous and well-regarded. Fame can easily transform into endorsement or advertising deals, at least for players in visible positions or who made extraordinary plays. Being regarded helps players get more money during their next contract negotiations. Teams value players who have had the experience of going to and winning a Super Bowl and are sometimes willing to pay extra for a player who has done that.

Put all together, the NFL playoff payouts, the Super Bowl rings, the various possible performance incentives, and the hard to quantify but significant benefit that being a Super Bowl lends a player in future football or business contracts, there is a large amount of money riding on the outcome of the Super Bowl. I still don’t think that’s what players are thinking about in the weeks leading up to the game or even the weeks following it, but it is possible.

Thanks for your question,
Ezra Fischer