Recently, Chris Pronger put out a thread of salary tweets regarding an NHL contract and about how a big-number contract isn’t actually all that big a number. He’s right – and wrong – but it was a clumsy attempt to explain what he wanted to.
When you hear about X player making $30M over 5 years ($6M/yr) you think wow he made it. However that is not always the reality, in this thread I am going to break down how much they take home and where the rest of it goes.
— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
Twitter is Not Your (*ahem* Chris Pronger) Friend
Twitter being Twitter, you can imagine how that went over. He was making a fairly simple point, which is the only kind that can really be made there. It’s not called “Deep Thoughts” after all.
The basic point is that people spend money. That’s not news to most of us, but how each of us spends money varies. He wanted to highlight that being an athlete at the highest level means there are certain things you have to do. It sounds tone-deaf to talk about having a personal masseuse, for instance. But it’s not an unreasonable expense when your income relies entirely on how well your body works. It’s just that not everyone can afford it. Not everyone has an agent they pay 3% of their income to, either, so small blessings.
Let’s face it: if you are a truck driver, work construction, or operate a till in fast food, you also rely entirely on how well your body holds up. If you can get an occasional visit to the physiotherapist? Don’t say no! So some of what he includes in his example budget are perfectly understandable things. Most of us will never need personal trainers, for instance. But professional athletes? Sure, that makes sense. The NHL-specific escrow withholding is something the vast majority of us can’t imagine happening. It’s not even a retirement fund, it’s just owners taking money away to balance their own books.
How Much for WHAT?!
Category mistakes are in there, too. Including a car in the yearly expenses for example. Yes, there is an ongoing cost to maintaining a vehicle – fuel, repairs, insurance – but that’s unlikely to hit $75,000 a year. Unless you’re talking about a fleet of vehicles, in which case… yeah, you lost us again. Still, that’s a pretty minor portion of the budget Pronger is using for his fictional player. His “$6-7K a month” for “nutritionist and food” is simply bewildering. Teams often have a nutritionist on staff and available to players, so unless he’s talking about a cook this is a mystery. One suspects it’s not your typical line item for most NHL players.
This isn’t even about how people choose to spend their money, really.
It’s Not Everyone
One thing Chris Pronger could have done differently is used a better example. Near the end of his thread, he reminds readers that the average career is only four years long at the NHL level. The average salary is $2 million a year. There are some attributes outside performance that swing these numbers a bit – taller players are paid more, as are high draft picks. But for the most part, the “average” player works just as hard as the NHL regulars. Heck, the AHL-tweener works just as hard as the NHL regulars.
The NHLer in Pronger’s example? Barring injury, his career isn’t going to be four years long. Anyone getting a five-year, six-million-dollar deal is getting other contracts around it. That’s one heck of a raise off an entry-level deal! And even if they don’t live up to this hypothetical second or third deal, some team is probably willing to give them a year or two at a lower rate if they become a free agent. Try to “recapture the magic” that earned the player a five-year offer. The other issue is that he’s telling readers that $30 million isn’t all that much. And that’s where he loses people.
Talking to the Little People
Again, his message is straightforward. It’s not a bad one, either: getting a windfall – even a big one – doesn’t mean you’re set for life. Just ask lottery winners, who are collectively more famous for losing their winnings and then some as they are for benefiting from them. Hockey, and sports in general, are notorious for leaving players unprepared for life once their careers end. But that’s a different story and one that’s been covered excellently elsewhere.
If he wanted to elicit sympathy, a better example might be the player who is a first-round bust. Or one who gets the figurative cup of coffee in the big league, but plays a decade in the minors. The huge discrepancy between the AHL and NHL salaries is one reason why a player getting his first one-way deal is a pivotal moment for them. However long it takes them to get it. Spencer Martin is going to jump from $105,000 in the AHL to $750,000 whether he plays in Vancouver or Abbotsford. That’s a big deal, and when he was drafted nine years ago there was no guarantee he would ever get it.
Compared to the Chris Pronger example, Martin’s made just over one million dollars playing hockey in seven years (hat tip to the invaluable CapFriendly). That’s still pretty dang nice, but it’s hardly $30 million. And even without the guarantee of a payday, the work he puts in is much the same as any NHL goaltender. All without the benefits of the NHL team’s support. In a city where a two-bedroom apartment is, on average, $3,000 a month.
Money, Money, Money
While Martin’s contract is with an NHL team, there is some support there. A bit less, with more travel by bus, cheaper hotels, that sort of thing. A team’s first-round pick may even get individual support from the team. But even that’s not true of an AHL free agent, putting in all the work in hopes of getting a team’s attention. Still, Pronger’s thread was about the NHLer who picks up a nice contract offer. What’s – figuratively speaking – the big deal?
This part’s simple: they earned it.
And before you start with the “they’re playing a kid’s game!” nonsense, remember this: If adults are playing it, it’s not a kid’s game. It doesn’t matter if the game is hockey, tag, or computer games. There is a lot of revenue to be made in games, and kids aren’t the ones paying kids millions of dollars a year. Hockey is also a fantastically dangerous sport, and no matter how skilled a player is, they may not get the chance at Pronger’s 18-year NHL career. Or the opportunity to enjoy it. Indeed, Pronger is famous for not playing in the last five years of his contract because of injuries. That ain’t a kid’s game.
Hockey-related revenue for the NHL plummeted in the 2020-21 season for obvious reasons. That collapse put owners in a hard spot – relatively speaking. There was a new CBA to negotiate in a radically changed landscape, unpredictability was the new catchword, etc. But one thing remains constant: the players. In the simplest argument, without players, there is no league. Fans don’t watch just anything. They want the best in the world, and NHL players are exactly that.
Same Message, Done Better
Chris Pronger wanted to remind people that players making money still have expenses. That’s fine. Consider it a preemptive public relations strike in case of an NHL player strike. He wanted to use a fairly large amount to show that expenses can be high for big-income players. Again, that’s fine but weakens the sympathy when your mythical player is reduced to “only” $2.5 million per year as take-home pay. He should have used the “average” NHL player – the one getting $2 million a season – instead. But it’s Twitter, and Twitter isn’t the place for nuance.
Better still, he could have pointed out that as awful as revenues were in 2020-21, they were still nearly $3 billion. And when you look around the arena filled with paying customers, eating $10 hot dogs and drinking $8 beer? It’s worth seeing who’s name is on the back of the store-purchased jersey, not just on the front of it.
Main Photo:
