Columnist Dean Juipe: Salaries up and they’ll go even higher

Dean Juipe

Friday, Jan. 16, 1998 | 11:51 a.m.

THE FEDERAL government insists it is not printing any more money than usual. The presses, including those with sheets of hundreds and thousands, are not operating around the clock or for longer periods of time here in 1998 than they were in 1990 or '80 or any other year.

Nothing has changed at Fort Knox.

Yet there are tons of loose bills around. Mountains of them. There must be, given the way corporate America has seen fit to fuel the latest round of salary escalation in professional sports.

Be it business acumen or an unsurpassed gesture of goodwill, four U.S. television networks committed $17.6 billion to the National Football League this week for an eight-year package of games. That dollar total is greater than all previous NFL TV deals combined.

This comes less than a year after the National Basketball Association elicited a 133-percent increase in its TV rights contracts. That deal came to $600 million per year; Major League Baseball gets $350 million per year in its current TV deal; the National Hockey League receives $130 million per year from TV.

If you thought athletes' salaries were high last year when every Rick Mahorn was paid at least $1 million and every Albert Belle asked for and received $10 million to play, brace up. If you were flabbergasted by Pete Rose getting $100,000 in 1970, you're undoubtedly speechless if not outright offended with today's reality that some athletes take home that much every couple of weeks.

Not only is there no end in sight to spiraling salaries, this latest wave of TV-driven revenue will lead to unimaginable riches for those with professional-level talent. It's said, for instance, that NFL salaries will double within five years, as the league's collective bargaining agreement with the players mandates that they receive 62 percent of the league's gross revenues. The per-team salary cap will move from $41.45 million to approximately $48 million for the 1998 season; yearly increases will follow.

There once was a time when Joe Fan, via higher ticket prices, directly paid for ever-increasing salaries. Now it's TV paying the lion's share, in part because it looks at the NFL, for example, and sees the raw numbers: 128 million Americans watched games this season, and the worldwide audience potential is said to be 800 million once the league expands its international marketing efforts.

And while the recipients of this financial windfall may not believe their good fortune, truth is there are even greater riches off in the horizon. The NFL in particular -- and all other sports for that matter, aside from boxing -- have yet to fully venture into pay per view. That untapped market will be exploited some day when the powers that be realize there are people in Duluth, Des Moines and Las Vegas who will pay 10 or 15 bucks apiece to watch the Philadelphia Eagles' game with the Arizona Cardinals rather than take in the network broadcast of New England at Miami for free.

If you're squeamish about outrageous sports salaries, adjust. Surrender. Get used to it.

Bigger money -- the Real Big Money -- is still to come.