The Craziest Contracts in Sports History (PART II)

The football player has to be paid, even if there is an ongoing apocalypse.

The world of sport is a world of miracles and controversies, and the extremities aren’t limited to the competitions. Sports deals are also spiced with miracles and controversies sometimes, but there are those cases, that are hard to understand even for the most experienced punters of online sportsbooks in the US.

There are so tough agents, who are able to reach contract clauses that guarantee payment even if there is an ongoing zombie apocalypse or an alien invasion. Sometimes you have to pay to get rid of the deadwood in the team, but what the New York Mets did, is just unbelievable. They will supply a pretty much useless player, who retired in 2001, with a USD 1 million per annum paycheck for 20 more years. Sometimes you only have to grow a funny moustache to pick up a nice bonus.

Here is the end of the world? I don’t care, just give Me my money!

Ace of Base and Radiohead also released their debut album in early 1993, so it was obvious back then that the end of the world was near. Seattle Seahawks used the second overall pick of the NFL draft to select quarterback Rick Mirer from Notre Dame. He had an outstanding college career behind him and he was presented as the new Joe Montana. But he had more than that: he hired Marvin Demoff and Don Yee as his agents, who are known today as the agents of certain Mr. Tom Brady.

Demoff and Yee were really tough guys to negotiate with. To discuss rookie deals for top picks wasn’t a piece of cake back then, but Demoff and Yee made it even harder. Eventually Mirer got his five year, USD 15 million contract, and the abrasiveness of Yee resulted in including the clause that guaranteed Mirer’s salary under all conditions, “up to and including the end of the world.” Any member of the mobile betting audience would appreciate a contract like that, even though that humanity survived the Y2K.

We have to get rid of this player? OK, pay him a million dollars a year!

The New York Mets made Bobby Bonilla the highest paid player in Major League Baseball in 1992. Then, after a lot of controversy, they traded him to the Orioles three years later. Only God knows why, but they hired Bonilla again in 1999, only to be released after a poor season. As Bonilla was in a mega deal when they traded for him, the Mets owed USD 5.9 million, when they terminated his contract.

To free up cap space, as they needed useful baseball players, Mets owner Fred Wilpon agreed to start to payout Bonilla only in 2011, with a yearly 8% interest. That means that Bonilla gets a USD 1.19 million paycheck until 2035, which takes the initial amount of USD 5.9 million up to a total of USD 29.8 million. Though Wilpon calculated – wrongly – that some of his business interests would cover Bonilla’s money, this deal is without question one of the craziest contracts in sports history.

We need a moustache!

In a time, when Major League Baseball teams prohibited their players from wearing facial hair, Reggie Jackson arrived at the Oakland Athletics training camp with a beard in 1972. His teammates started to grow moustaches to force Jackson to shave, however owner Charles O. Finley had other ideas. The businessman instantly saw an opportunity to gain some attention for the team. He thought that it would be funny if his players wore moustaches. Therefore he organized a promotion, offering a USD 300 bonus to the ball player who sports the finest facial hair by the Opening Day of the season.

Several players started to grow moustaches, and the whole team picked up the bonus eventually. However, it is no question that Rollie Fingers won the competition with a properly waxed handlebar moustache, in the style of the 19th century players. Oakland won the World Series that year, ending a more than 40-year-long title drought. Stunning many of those, who bet on sports in the US, they defended their title in 1973 and again in 1974, and Fingers kept his trademark moustache, and he still has it.