The business of sports
We have been doing this little weekday morning song and dance every day since late October 2010.
So technically the 5-at-10 is about nine months older than the start of the greatest contract decision in sports history.
Yes, it’s July 1, which means it’s Bobby Bonilla Day. On July 1, 2011, Bonilla went to his mailbox for a certified check for right at $1.2 million from the New York Mets.
Bonilla took a buyout from the Mets for his contract that had between $5-and-6 million on it for the 1999 season. Well, Mets ownership wanted to take that money and invest it in the then and there and agreed to an annual defer payment to Bonilla every July 1, starting in ’11 and running through 2035. (Side note: If I am still doing the 5-at-10 when the Bonilla family gets that final check, well, come visit me at Alexian, will you?)
So the Mets turned a little less than the $6 million it owed Bonilla into roughly $25 million in payment. So there’s that. And the only way this story gets more typically Mets is that the money it did not pay Bonilla was invested with some Wall Street go-getter named Bernie Madoff, and well, we know how that story ended.
And speaking of New York sports franchise also-rans finishing up disastrous contracts, Tuesday was the final installment of the Nets owed former all-star point guard Daron Williams.
Williams, who last played in the NBA in 2017, received the final check of his five-year, $98 million deal he signed in 2012, but the Nets bought him out and the terms extended until Tuesday.
What was the damage, well, the Nets have been paying Williams about $15,000 a day since his career ended in 2017.
Hey, anyone want to offer me a buyout? Let’s talk.
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