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By Ray Hanania
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Sports has really changed over the past few generations. When I was young, going to a baseball or football game was very affordable.
That’s because the sports teams weren’t paying the outrageous contracts to get the best sports stars.
Sports competition used to be in person. We would go to the game and watch it. These days, athletes and sports organizations get a lot of money from lucrative advertising deals in the millions.
A hot dog at Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs play costs $8. In fact, the last time I went to a game with my daughter and cousins, six people, it cost over $450 for food, parking and drinks.
Ray Hanania
You can imagine I don’t go to the live games that often any more. But, I always enjoy the fact that they have preserved Wrigley Field. It reminds me of when I would go there as a child with my father in the 1960s.
We would also go to a few Bears games at Soldier Field. The stadium has been a magnet for families and sports fans since 1924 and home to the Bears since 1971. It was renovated in 2023, and guess who paid for most of it? You bet. The taxpayers. The renovation was $632 million. Taxpayers covered $432 million.
The Bears want to build a new stadium; but honestly, I love looking at and going to the existing stadium, even with the expansion back in 2003 that makes it look like a space ship. (Hey, I’m a 1950s Baby Boomer who grew up with science fiction and sports, by the way.)
After flirting several years with Arlington Heights, where the Bears own 326 acres of land, the Bears returned to Chicago proposing a multi-billion domed stadium.
The Illinois Sports Facilities Authority is currently using a 2% tax on hotel stays to pay off outstanding debts.
I like Mayor Brandon Johnson, who is exploring ways to revive Chicago as a tourist attraction. Rising crime in Chicago that is spreading to the suburbs is making that difficult, but he seems to be doing it the right way. A new stadium, he says, will attract tourists from “outside of Chicago” — mostly white suburbanites — and will rely on them paying some of the costs.
But how much are we talking about? No one in government has any respect for the taxpayers.
But professional sports has huge respect for their athletes who receive outrageous contracts in the tens of millions. In fact, tens of millions doesn’t even come close.
Here are the wages of some Major League Baseball players, according to Sportrac: Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers, $70 million; Max Scherzer, Texas Rangers, $43,333,333; Justin Verlander, Houston Astros, $43,333,333; Zach Wheeler, Philadelphia Phillies, $42 million; Aaron Judge, New York Yankees, $40 million; Jacob deGrom, Texas Rangers, $37 million; Gerrit Cole, New York Yankees, $36 million; and Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels, $35,541,667.
The contracts are outrageous and similar to contracts in the NFL.
Sports used to be fun. Players could make money. But these days, they are being paid way too much.
Of course, sports players are not the only ones ripping off the public. Officers at the ASPCA are also ripping off the public. You know that organization that puts sad-looking dog faces on TV, begging you to send them $19 a month.
Executives at ASPCA are paid more than $5.5 million in salaries and receive $4.8 million in pension benefits. I’ll write about them next.
Ray Hanania is a former Chicago City Hall reporter and award-winning columnist. Visit hanania.com for more opinion.