Imagine receiving a offer-sheet in the mail… employment consideration with earning potential at a tax bracket higher than 85% of the country’s population; and a first year’s salary greater than the combined incomes of your entire family! I’m talking major figures, the kind of money that pays cash for new high-rise property, and still has enough to furnish the entire real estate project. Imagine that for a second… in today’s economic downturn where ordinary folks are losing jobs everyday and retirement funds expire like last week’s milk… that you were given an opportunity to step into your dream job with guaranteed financial security.
You’re 21 years old. Spent the last 3 years staring into school books & the bottom of cheap bottles of gin. Don’t get me wrong, life hasn’t been easy; watched Dad drive off at an early age & mom worked 3 jobs to pay for your Big-10 education. But none of that matters today, because you have a job offer sitting across from you that can erase the shame of having to wear hand-me-downs in Jr. High! Ink pen in hand, mom’s smiling… “Did they spell my name right? CHECK!!” Only thing left is to sign the contract, and you will be delivering 2 generations of your family from poverty.
”Hold up… I thought we agreed on $45 Million?! This looks like $43.5M… I need them to come up to Top-10 money or I aint signing!!!”
Look, I’ve been in the board room a few times, and believe in tough negotiations. Every cent matters, and if it were an offer for $43,500 instead of the $45,000 that you’d hoped, I think I’d be more sympathetic considering fluctuations in gas prices. But, when you were basically running back punt-returns the previous year FOR FREE, cradled a 2.1 GPA just so you would stay academically eligible for Saturdays, dropped out of college with a job offer while your fellow students prepare for their senior year… and offered a package to embrace a celebrity lifestyle for the rest of your life, “CRY ME A ______ RIVER!!”
It’s a joke to most reasonable people, that you would jeopardise your future on a few decimal points, especially when they can be accounted for in possible endorsement offers, returns from proper investment, bonuses, & future earnings if you come to training camp on time/do the right things. When week-1 comes, and you haven’t made ANY strides with the organization or the local community, not only does it look bad for the business of “Self-Promotions,” but other teams, who could eventually pick up your contract years down the road, will always remember how you stuck it to your drafting squad over $1.5M (which is more like $650K after taxes & fees).
And worse case scenario: if you injure yourself with a spoon while eating Fruit Loops & watching ESPN “First Take” one morning and can’t report to camp, you risk being dropped COMPLETELY… thus ending up as “the guy around the corner who had an offer to play in the NFL, but now teaches P.E. at Peavy Middle School.”
T.J. Breeden
www.iblmedia.com
