PGA's Bad Labor Deal

[BigAl5150]

Rick Reilly has an interesting article comparing the PGA's labor deal with the locked out sports.

http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/6761876/rick-reilly-pga-bad-labor-deal

[jamo]

Great article. My favorite lines: [QUOTE]You wanna see a pro golfer laugh? Tell him that the NBA players are hacked off about possibly having their average salary of $6 million trimmed in this lockout. Do you know how many guys on the PGA Tour made that last year? One: Jim Furyk. "It's hard to really imagine that kind of world," says Justin Leonard, who will play his 19th British Open here Thursday at Royal St. George's. "Guaranteed contracts, no matter what? The rookie salaries? Wow. I can't get my head around all that. That's my incentive to play! I'm kinda proud we start at zero every week."[/QUOTE]

[iacas]

Good article. I like that golfers play for their lives. I wish more of them had to play for it more often, though. With tee-up money and all the other stuff out there, you can have a good living being even #125. I say make it harder on them, make winning more important.

Golf, for better or worse, ain't the NFL.

[newtogolf]

Great article, NBA players don't realize how good they have it given how many teams are losing money each year.  NFL is a bit different since every team is profitable, and it's more about greed than ensuring the league survives.

Maybe golf should consider spliting up the season to form the WGL (World Golf League) that includes teams of golfers that play head to head across the world.  Start the season with a draft and each player can negotiate his own contract to play for the team.  Twelve teams and each team drafts ten golfers but starts only five each week based on course type.  Get some of the senior tour golfers to act as captains or managers.  Maybe Vince McMahon would be interested....

[uttexas]

PGA players often refer to themselves as self employed independent contractors and are more or less treated as such. I'd be interested to read what sponsors and equipment companies pay for (travel, hotels, etc) and if some players get salaried titles at these companies (maybe R&D; associate). Some players have titles such as "playing editor" at magazines and contribute a monthly article...are they on the payroll with a 401K and health benefits?

[Kieran123]

NBA players get paid too much, not doubt about that. But at least their sport is physical and they work extremely hard on and off the court ( except Kobe in the 4th )....unlike Baseball - unbelievable wages for what they do.

[sean_miller]

Many professional athletes make too much money. Other's, in feeder leagues, mini-tours, and on practice rosters can barely survive. I find it interesting and sad that so many has-beens and never-gonna-bes hang on way too long hoping for that payday that ain't never gonna come!

[Thrash13]

That's a very cool article, and it's one of the reasons I'm a huge fan of watching golf.  It's nice not having to worry whether or not there will be a season.  Like Erik said, I'd love to see some of the golfers more often throughout the year, but I'll take what I get.

[x129]

Lets look at the highest paid american athletes 2010 (it sounds like golf/tenis is largely 2009 based)

1) Tiger Woods 90 million

2) Phil Mickelson  61 million

3)  Floyd Mayweather Jr 60 million

4) Lebron James   45 million

5) ARod              37 million

Looks to me like the golfers are doing all right.

Now it would be fun to make basketball more incentive based. Imagine it was something like 500k a game, winner take all and then let the players pick the teams and how the money gets split.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamo

Great article. My favorite lines:

Quote:

You wanna see a pro golfer laugh? Tell him that the NBA players are hacked off about possibly having their average salary of $6 million trimmed in this lockout. Do you know how many guys on the PGA Tour made that last year? One: Jim Furyk.

"It's hard to really imagine that kind of world," says Justin Leonard, who will play his 19th British Open here Thursday at Royal St. George's. "Guaranteed contracts, no matter what? The rookie salaries? Wow. I can't get my head around all that. That's my incentive to play! I'm kinda proud we start at zero every week."

[Zwick]

Then you should compare the guy who's 100th on the money list to the 100th guy on the basketball/nfl/baseball/"real" football salary list

Originally Posted by x129

Lets look at the highest paid american athletes 2010 (it sounds like golf/tenis is largely 2009 based)

1) Tiger Woods 90 million

2) Phil Mickelson  61 million

3)  Floyd Mayweather Jr 60 million

4) Lebron James   45 million

5) ARod              37 million

Looks to me like the golfers are doing all right.

[LfSideStrngSide]

Not to get off topic but really? Callin out Kobe?? The second most clutch player ever? I think somehow you were mistaken and meant Lebron

Originally Posted by Kieran123

NBA players get paid too much, not doubt about that. But at least their sport is physical and they work extremely hard on and off the court ( except Kobe in the 4th )....unlike Baseball - unbelievable wages for what they do.

[Kieran123]

Originally Posted by LfSideStrngSide

Not to get off topic but really? Callin out Kobe?? The second most clutch player ever? I think somehow you were mistaken and meant Lebron

LOLZ....ok.....just for the 2011 season then

4th quarter finals stats 2011

kobe:
7.1ppg
38.6% shooting
1.1 apg
11.1 mpg


lebron:
5.6 ppg
38.3%shooting
2.1 apg
11.7 mpg

Both terrible.

[LfSideStrngSide]

Okay now I'm really confused because Kobe didn't make it to the finals in 2011!

Originally Posted by Kieran123

LOLZ....ok.....just for the 2011 season then

4th quarter finals stats 2011

kobe:

7.1ppg

38.6% shooting

1.1 apg

11.1 mpg

lebron:

5.6 ppg

38.3%shooting

2.1 apg

11.7 mpg

Both terrible.

[Bo the Golfer]

Nice article. I have always liked how golf was set up where you have to perform to make your cash. The NFL is not great for the players with non-guaranteed contracts but they still do all right. Baseball players have it the best IMHO. You get a hang nail and hit the 15 day dl counting your millions.

[Kieran123]

Originally Posted by LfSideStrngSide

Okay now I'm really confused because Kobe didn't make it to the finals in 2011!

Errr...I meant playoffs

[x129]

You need to scale. There are ~200 pga guys. There are about 1800 (there are ~1700 guys on normal roster and then people added for injuries) NFL players. Your 100th PGA player (making just under a million a year) would be the same as the 900th NFLer.  The median salary will of that guy is about 800k. Pretty much the same as the golfer.

Now compare career lengths. I have no idea how long the average PGA career but I have a hard time imagining it is less the 4 years like a NFLer.

Now basketball and baseball players are all overpaid:)

As far as contracts, the top players have them they are with equipment makers and not the tour though. Wie made millions before she proved anything on the LPGA. And there are guys that good equipment deals that never made money on the tour. How deep and how much that money goes, I have no clue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwick

Then you should compare the guy who's 100th on the money list to the 100th guy on the basketball/nfl/baseball/"real" football salary list

[LfSideStrngSide]

No prob Kieran haha

x129, Wie still hasn't proven anything. What a waste of talent. Good for her for hitting the jackpot though

[iacas]

Originally Posted by LfSideStrngSide

x129, Wie still hasn't proven anything. What a waste of talent. Good for her for hitting the jackpot though

She's proven something . Two wins and a really successful Solheim Cup may not be "her potential" or what was expected of her but she's definitely proven at least a little.

I think the point remains that the top golfers might make more, but the average golfers aren't guaranteed squat and make considerably less than "league minimum" in some of the other sports. The fifth best player on a single NHL team, for example, might make $5M/year. The dropoff in golf is sharp.