You may be looking for a new television or Macbook today and on Cyber Monday, but general managers in professional sports are looking for those types of deals 365 1/4 days a year. Money ain’t a thing for the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees, but the other pro sports franchises in America have budgets and salary caps to worry about.
It’s why the NFL made sure to add a rookie wage scale to the collective bargaining agreement in 2011. There would be no more JaMarcus Russells taking up so much of the salary cap. These days, if the No. 1 overall pick in the draft plays like an all-league talent from day 1, it gives franchises the flexibility to quickly build a roster that can compete for a championship
That is one of many mechanisms that American professional sports use to control player salaries, so the owners have as many chances as possible to sign players to contracts that are a relative bargain compared to what their talent would command in a truly open market.
Since the billionaire franchise owners are just like us trying to purchase a Bluetooth speaker at below market rate, let’s get in the Black Friday spirit by looking at some of the biggest bargain contracts in American sports.