DALLAS — I was surprised at the voicemail that clocked in at over two minutes, the angry gentleman going off on Phil Mickelson, how he had cheered for him for 30 years and never would again, his dismay at the outright greed displayed by the man, already wealthy despite gambling losses and willing to toss his legacy to the side to play against lesser competition for millions of Saudi-backed dollars.
Willis Cowlishaw turns 96 next week, and he usually doesn’t get so worked up these days.
Yes, a lot of folks are angry about greed in sports, and it’s not solely related to the has-beens and never-weres along with a few still promising Tour players chasing those LIV dollars that Greg Norman is so proud of. It’s all over the sports landscape these days. If they can remake the 1986 release of “Top Gun,” then surely it’s time to do likewise with 1987’s “Wall Street” because the whole “Greed is good, greed is right” speech feels in touch with these times.
At my alma mater, the Great Sark was supposed to bring titles or at least compete for them, not lose to Kansas. In his second year, he may not deliver a championship but thanks to NIL, he has put the Longhorns in luxury vehicles. Running back Bijan Robinson now drives a Lamborghini. Quarterback Quinn Ewers, who mastered the NIL game in terms of making money at Ohio State without throwing a pass, is now driving an Aston Martin in Austin. The Horns may not rule the Big 12, but at least they’ll look sharp pulling up to the frat house party after that loss to Alabama on Sept. 10.
Money is the king of the modern sports debate.
Is Jalen Brunson worth $20 million a year? (Yes, although it limits the Mavs in a big way).
Is Dak worth $40 million a year? (Perhaps, but they are pinching pennies on wide receivers again).
Is Marcus Semien worth $25 million a year? (The last 10 days it’s a resounding “yes” after 40 games of a big “hell no”).
It’s like there is this enormous ball filled with cash floating over the sports world, ready to spill at all times, only no one is dying in these squid games.
The out-of-control money is not confined to the field. After Tony Romo got roughly $1 million per week to growl his way through a three-hour football game on CBS, Troy Aikman cashed in similarly at ESPN. Naturally, Tom Brady doubled both with a reported $37.5 million per year deal to broadcast games if and when he retires.
We know how silly all this is, that if Aikman and Joe Buck at a collective $33 million per year were given a steady diet of Vikings-Jaguars, Monday Night Football’s ratings would tank anyway. Don’t worry, they got better games. But in Brady’s case, the man who became a modern day Joe Montana at quarterback better not duplicate his idol in the broadcast booth or Fox has just flushed away a fortune.
Heck, some of us on this side of the media business see ESPN’s Adam Schefter getting a reported $9 million and start to think, “If only I had actually broken all those stories Jimmy Johnson was feeding me at the bar in 1993. I thought it was off the record!”
The truth of the matter is that we spend a lot more time being angry about money than we do being happy we have it. Our salaries are perfectly fine until we hear the guy in the next cubicle is making an additional $20,000. All of a sudden we are incensed.
It’s all about the Benjamins. Can it be any surprise that the best boxer of the last 20 years was known as Floyd “Money” Mayweather?
Still, I don’t think any of this gets our goat the way these golfers have. It’s not simply the fact they all feign utter cluelessness when asked about the Saudi regime they are helping to legitimize. At the press conference before the first LIV event, each golfer that spoke sounded more idiotic than the one who came before. Graeme McDowell said if he can do something to enhance the Saudi image, he’s happy to help. Then when players were asked if they would play in a tournament funded by Putin, Ian Poulter said, “That’s speculation, and I’m not going to comment on speculation.”
It was Poulter’s way of saying: “How much is Good Ol’ Vlad paying?’’
