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Sports Q&A: How to spend $100 million By Jeffrey Boswell The Philadelphia Eagles signed Michael Vick to a six-year, $100 million contract extension with approximately $40 million guaranteed. Is this a wise deal for the Eagles, and what else can $100 million buy? Ask Andy Reid or anyone in the Philly front office and they’ll tell you it is money well spent. Ask any of Vick’s numerous creditors and they’ll tell you it’s money already spent. Vick’s not the only one set to collect on this deal. Vick was in debt; now he’s indebted to the Eagles for their $100 million show of faith. Vick became the first player to receive two contracts of $100 million or more. The first came in 2004, when he signed an eightyear, $130 million contract with the Falcons. And everyone knows how that ended — with the biggest case of buyer’s remorse in history. Regardless of what happens, this will be the last $100 million contract offered to Vick. But the Eagles are investing in a different person, one who’s learned from his mistakes, and now, one who’s earned from his mistakes. Many will argue that Vick, because of his criminal past, does not deserve such a lucrative contract. But this is professional athletics, in which players, more often than not, get more than they deserve, except when it comes to punishment. However, Vick did serve the time mandated by the courts, and had a 2010 season that would warrant such a contract, if those numbers could be equaled or surpassed. That is really what the Eagles are gambling on. Not the chance that Vick resorts to his criminal past, but the chance that he isn’t the player who threw for 21 touchdowns and rushed for nine more. $100 million is a Shih Tzu-load of money. And Vick didn’t even have to beg for it. The Eagles were happy to roll over and hand Vick an offer that makes him the third-highest-paid player behind Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. That’s a lot to live up to, especially now for Brady and Manning, who will now want to prove that Vick is not worth that money as much as Vick wants to prove he is.
So just what else can $100 million buy? • $100 million would pay for 62.5 seasons of Vick’s services at his 2009 contract rate. • $100 million would cover 19 seasons at Vick’s 2010 contract rate. • $100 million could buy 12,500 Vince Lombardi Trophies, and (the Eagles hope) one Super Bowl championship. • $100 million could buy 1,010,101 downloads of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.” • $100 million would have bought 4,167 Tim Tebow jerseys last year; this year, you could get 12,500. • $100 million could place 500,000 $200 bounties on the head of former Dallas kicker Luis Zendejas. • $100 million could buy you your own personal PETA protest. • $100 million would cover 285,714,286 hours of prison labor at 35 cents per hour. • $100 million would reduce the federal deficit by .007874%. • $100 million is good for 4,000 minimum bets in an illegal poker game attended by Alex Rodriguez. • With $100 million, Pacman Jones could “make it rain” at a Las Vegas strip club for three hours, 20 minutes, assuming 5,000 one-dollar bills raining per minute. • $100 million would cover 345 improper $290,000 gifts to Reggie Bush. • $100 million will buy you relatives you didn’t even know you had. • $100 million would pay for 1,000 $100,000 fines charged to a team whose assistant coach trips opposing players on the sideline. • $100 million could buy 6% of the Dallas Cowboys, and possibly all of the Los Angeles Dodgers. • $100 million can buy time in the DeSean Jackson contract re-negotiations talks. 14 September 15, 2011 THE MILITARY PRESS