Much ado about a pittance

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Show me the money.” This dialogue of Cuba Gooding Jr, playing the role of an American football star, to his agent Tom Cruise in the movie Jerry Maguire perhaps captures best what drives sportsmen in the modern era — cash.
India’s darlings and the blue-eyed boys of the masses, our cricketers, are just beginning to get more than a small fraction of their worth. However, their recent failure in the Caribbean during the recent T20 tournament has started a debate on whether too much money is the cause of their dismal performance.
Before condemning cricketers, let’s first see where they stand when compared to other international sportstars. Even before that, think about a movie starring Tom Cruise, who is paid $25 million (Rs 115 core), or Rajinikanth, who is paid Rs 15 crore. Even if their performance is so bad that the movie is sure to bomb at the box office, would we argue that these stars should be paid less?
India’s highest paid cricketer, skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, gets Rs 6 crore a year from Chennai Super Kings and another Rs 2 crore from Team India as contracted money plus match fees. If we don’t take into account endorsements as a major source of income that is usually at least three times over the sports salary, what stars like Dhoni or Tendulkar earn is a pittance. Consider first these sport salaries — in the high-risk, high-octane world of F-1 motor racing, Kimi Raikkonen took home a cool retainer of $45 million from Ferrari for the 2009 season. That could easily be the top salary for an international sportsman although Tiger Woods is estimated to have graduated to become the first sporting billionaire of the world, ironically in a year during which he was enmeshed in a major sex scandal.
Do you remember when last Raikkonen won a Formula 1 Grand Prix, leave alone the world championship? But for a man who risks his life every time he zips past at 300 mph in a speed machine, this might actually seem like small compensation. Reigning champion Jenson Button took home just $5 million last year (because he sacrificed money for an ailing team to survive the Honda F1 pullout) while Lewis Hamilton was paid $18 m (Rs 83 crore) and Fernando Alonso $15 m (Rs 69 crore).
Soccer’s magical young Argentine star and Barcelona ace Lionel Messi took home a cool $47.36 million (Rs 218 crore) last year from salary, bonus and off-field earnings according to the game’s rich list. But when we take into account soccer’s global reach and its economic value, which should be close to $20 billion (Rs 92,000 crore) a year, we realise how players’ salaries, as a proportion of the game’s revenues, are not very significant.
Real Madrid, who went on a player spending spree of Rs 1,400 crore for fresh talent for the 2010 season, including a world record transfer fee of Rs 585 crore for Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United, came up empty-handed. Of course, the transfer fees do not end up in player pockets, going as they do to the selling club.
Hence Ronaldo, with an annual salary of Rs 62 crore, stays only at No. 3 in the game’s rich list for the year despite the record fee paid for his transfer to become a Galactico.
New York Yankees, the top spending sports club in the world, spends $200 million a year just on salaries. Even if the iconic baseball team has a bank of 400 million fans, it is still a lot of money to spend on players. And the club has not won the pennant for 10 years now.
The highest salary paid to a baseball player is to Alex Rodrigues (A-Rod) who gets $25 million per year. Baseball in the US is a $6 billion (Rs 28,000 crore) industry.
As more and more money is spent on celebrities and sportsmen as the culture of leisure gains importance in a world with more free time than since the Industrial revolution, India is really just catching up on global trends. Whether sportsmen should be paid 1,000 times more than school teachers or government doctors is a question that we cannot even try answering because this is the way the world has been going in terms of paying more for the rich and famous who are only getting richer and more famous.
Sport is still about work ethics, sporting culture and solid commitment as small teams like the Oakland A’s run by Billie Bean have proved consistently, or closer home, the ball boy-caddie turned golfer from Karnataka, Chikkarangappa.
In a trailblazing career, Roger Federer, who is only the third man to have won all the four grand slams, has earned around $55 million (Rs 253 crore) in prize money. Of course, adding endorsement income and appearance money would take his total earnings closer to the half billion dollar mark.
As sporting icons, Sachin Tendulkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh have each made several hundred crores with the first name having consistently made it for years as the the richest cricketer in the world. But even his fortune will pale in comparison to Tiger Woods who is said to be worth a billion dollars (Rs 4,600 crores).
Kapil Dev, who along with Sunil Gavaskar, realized only a fraction of their market worth because they were playing in an era of relative poverty, firmly believes sportsmen and cricketers should be paid much more in the country.
“They say the IPL is generating at least $250 million (Rs 1,150 crore) a year. What are the cricketers earning? All 176 players put together take home some $40 million per year (Rs 184 crore), which is the franchise salary cap multiplied eight times. Now they are talking of a $7 million cap, which will raise the total earnings to $70 million (Rs 322 crore). Honestly, I believe the salary of IPL cricketers should be doubled,” the World Cup winning captain says.
If we take the ballpark figure of $150 million (Rs 690 crore) as Sachin Tendulkar’s all-inclusive earnings over a 20-year career, that would also pale in comparison to what a Tiger Woods will earn in his career. Just imagine the money David Beckham, more famous for being famous than a true sporting legend, has roped in during his career as a celebrity sportsman.