Money is a necessity of life and each one of us works day in and day out to ensure proper financial viability to support our family. Money drives our way of life and thus, be it a professional corporate man, sportsperson, a roadside hawker – for each one of us, money beholds a great value.
In a sportsman’s life and more so a sportsman belonging from the 1970’s, 1980’s or 1990’s period, money was never an area of satisfaction as the world of commercialization still hadn’t made it big in sports.
Sure, the money was gradually increasing but one couldn’t associate sports to being a great way to a financially luxurious life.
In the last decade or so however; the world of advertising has progressed strength to strength and the money has started to flow across all sports – the reason for which primarily is the digitalization of sports with it beholding with itself the power to reach audiences all across the globe. Moreover, being approached to become brand ambassador of a brand ensures a consistent flow of income with very little liability (only that if the brand goes down, your popularity might take a toll as well).
The greatest example to support the whole concept of increasing money for sportspersons can be summed up by the example of America’s great perhaps the greatest basketball player, Michael Jordan.
Jordan was the first NBA player to sign a contract worth over thirty million dollars in a season. Going strength to strength, he earned $33,000,000 in the 1997-98 NBA season.
For players like Jordan the money was always there and it wasn’t necessarily an area of concern but who knew that there’ll be a day soon that these numbers will start to look tiny and Jordan would, hold your breath, earn more in a year than in his whole basketball career.
As per a report published in USAtoday, Jordan earned a whopping $100 million from his due share of royalties from Nike, Jumpman and Air Jordan. It is estimated that in his entire career, Jordan only managed to earn somewhere around $91 to $94 million, which approx. falls short of his annual earning by $9 to $6 million.
Jordan’s tryst with money isn’t knew in fact his last 2 years with the Bulls’s , he earned $66 million which in sum is double to what he had earned thus far in his career – which can be estimated at around $30 million.
It is fair to state here that not every basketball player can be estimated to earn as much as Jordan does for a brand like him to associate with a sporting brand gives a sense of goodwill which has a tremendous impact on sales and thus it’s only fitting that Jordan receives a fair amount of royalty for his name to be associated with the brand. Having said which, we cannot have a blindside to the average income of sportspersons across sports and admit that it has definitely increased. Gone are the days when sportspersons needed to hold a separate job alongside their sports career to support their family; in today’s day and age it isn’t shocking if parents tell their kids to opt for sports as a career as it simply has become a major platform to showcase your rare talent and get rewarded for it – of course in form of fan following and more importantly; in form of financial feasibility.