For The Love or Money?

Show Me the Money...lots of it!

No matter what kind of sports fan you are whether its only Football, Baseball, Soccer or whichever, the one thing that all sports fans want to see is the fight between Floyd 'Money' Mayweather Jr Vs. Manny Pacquiao. The reason behind this is simple - they are the best boxers in the world and arguably 1st ballot Hall of Famers in Boxing. Both parties are interested in making this 'instant classic' bout happen but the only, and I use the word only very loosely, issue is of how much of money does each boxer get? As his nickname and picture to the right depicts Floyd Mayweather Jr. wants the promoters to 'show him the money', and he wants them to show him quite a lump sum of money. To be exact, he rejected 50 million dollars for his services but considers 100 million just right for his services, just for ONE FIGHT!!!!

Floyd Mayweather Jr. is not the only professional athlete that wants to get 'cashed out' for his tremendous talents, every professional athlete with tremendous talents more or less the potential for tremendous talent, want to get 'cashed out' for their services. For instance, the players in The National Football League are notorious for such antics. Many experts call The NFL 'a copycat league', meaning, that everyone follows suit after each other ranging from types of defenses/offenses to contract negotiations. Consequently, if a player 'holds out' (the process of not showing up to work to achieve a lucrative contract) for an X amount of time or a certain player gets X amount of money, then the next player observes what happens and tries to 'copycat' him. It is understandabe trying to maximum monetize the efforts but when they constantly tell the media 'It's not about the money, I love this game and would play for free', it irks the fans and they begin to question the motives of professional athletes.

The major contributors to these athletes are the fans. The fans are what make these athletes lucrative through the purchases of player jerseys, stadium tickets, team paraphernalia, and etc. Once the fans have shown support and talent is proven, the front office sees the popularity of the athlete among the fans, and more than likely a lucrative contract is signed. However, if the fans begin to not purchase player jerseys, stadium tickets, team paraphernalia, even with the talent proven, the front office will have doubt on whether this athlete will create revenue, because the fans have shown that they will not purchase team paraphernalia more or less, the athletes gear. In the end, do these athletes really love their sport or the money that is to be made in their sport?