(ThyBlackMan.com) The New York Knicks might be working on the creation of the statue for current Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson right now. Brunson just made a relatively rare move in professional sports as he took a massive discount after agreeing to a four-year, $156.5 million extension recently and by reupping and signing a new contract in New York now instead of next offseason. It’s a big deal in New York that he will make $113 million less guaranteed on his contract than he is eligible to sign for in 2025. It also gives the Knicks financial flexibility to improve and retain the key personnel around him in order to make a run at the NBA championship. While building a Jalen Brunson statue outside of Madison Square Garden actually isn’t happening anytime soon, his decision and the praise for giving up several millions of dollars says a lot about the current sports landscape.
Jalen Brunson isn’t the first professional athlete to “leave money” on the table for a potential better opportunity for team success. With the athlete salaries of the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball, and other major professional sports going up annually, it is fascinating to that making a smidge under $60 million a year, as Jalen Brunson will for his new contract extension, is considered a “sacrifice”. Of course, one of the more appealing aspects for sports fans has long been the “Monopoly” money that professional athletes make with free agent contracts as the average person in the U.S. cannot relate to making millions of dollars during their respective careers. In fact, today’s average U.S. worker is struggling to make ends meet and are living “paycheck to paycheck”. A Forbes article defined living “paycheck to paycheck” as “a financial scenario in which an individual or family’s income barely covers essential living expenses like housing, utilities, groceries and transportation. One missed paycheck would put someone living paycheck to paycheck in a difficult spot.” The same article detailed a 2023 survey conducted by Payroll.org that highlighted that 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, a 6% increase from the previous year.
It is also critical to point out that professional sports leagues themselves are financially thriving as people living in the U.S. are not. The National Football League, the most popular professional sports league in America, posted record revenue during the 2023 season of several billions of dollars. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has reportedly been making $60 million years before NBA players and NFL quarterbacks did. It is critical to remember that these sports leagues wouldn’t pay the athletes eye-popping salaries if they couldn’t afford to and if the salary cap didn’t continue to rise due to the billion-dollar TV and marketing deals.
As professional athlete salaries reach even more astronomical numbers, it becomes a question of whether the sports fans who watch them perform will be driven away by those salaries. A reminder that in another entertainment industry that the highest-paid actors make salaries comparable to the millions that some of the top professional athletes make. However, the complaints about actors’ salaries for lackluster movies is not the same as the criticism professional athletes receive from sports fans who are not producing at a high level. The visibility of professional athlete salaries makes them receive criticism from portions of the U.S. public as the cost of living continues to be a challenge for most.
Staff Writer; Mark Hines