Professional athletes are worth every last penny they make. Yes, you heard us. Sure, pro athletes make millions and millions of dollars for playing a game, freelegal.ch but the game pays back. Let's take boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr., feelingcutelol.com for instance. Mayweather made $65 million in 2010 just for punching another man in the face. On the surface, that's sounds absurd. Yes, Kobe is one of the NBA's reigning superstars, but should any man make 120 times more than the president of the United States for chucking a ball through a hoop? But then again, return on investment is a tricky thing. For a sports franchise to make stadium-loads of dough, they often have to throw large sums of cash at professionally unproven prospects. And in retrospect, what looks like a smart bet on a future superstar often turns out to be an egregiously bad business decision that sends the club spiraling into bankruptcy. The following is our list of the 10 biggest contract catastrophes in professional sports, starting with Heisman Trophy-winning running back Ricky Williams.
Coming out of college, Ricky Williams was nothing short of a football god. During his four years at the University of Texas, the dreadlocked running back broke the all-time NCAA Division I rushing record (held by Tony Dorsett for 22 years), the all-time Division I rushing touchdown record -- and capped it off with the 1998 Heisman Trophy. In 1997, legendary NFL coach Mike Ditka came out of retirement to revive the beleaguered New Orleans Saints. As a result, Williams' contract with the Saints was a mess. On the surface, it was a seven-year, $68 million deal. The suffering Saints didn't get a whole lot out of the deal, either. Williams hurt his ankle in the first season, only scoring two rushing touchdowns. Things picked up in the next season, but by then his odd behavior -- conducting post-game interviews with his helmet on, rumors of heavy marijuana use, a teammate-bashing article in "ESPN: The Magazine" -- sealed his fate. Like Ricky Williams, Ryan Leaf was one of the top college prospects in the U.S.
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In a flash of fortuitous brilliance, the Indianapolis Colts passed on Leaf to draft another highly touted quarterback, Peyton Manning. Leaf signed a four-year, $31.25 million contract with the Chargers, including a guaranteed $11.25 million signing bonus -- the largest ever paid to a rookie at the time. Blame it on the big-money pressure, but the poor quarterback's career was doomed from the start. A shoulder injury kept him sidelined for a whole season and when he was back in the game, he only managed a 4-17 record as a starter. An eventual trade to the Dallas Cowboys was the beginning of the end. No one can rightfully call Allan Houston's career a "bust." When he ultimately retired (for the second time) after nine seasons with the New York Knicks, he ranked among the top 10 scorers in franchise history. But unfortunately for Houston, he'll ultimately be remembered less for his on-court heroics -- his buzzer-beater in game 5 of the opening round of the 1999 playoffs was one of the most dramatic in Knicks history -- than for his 2001 contract extension for a ridiculous $100 million over six years. Art icle has been generat ed with G SA C ontent G ener ator DEMO!
Achilles had his heel and Amazon Fashion Houston had his knees. The $100 million albatross on Houston's back made him virtually untradeable, draining millions from the Knicks' coffers and drawing vocal complaints of mismanagement from the team's diehard fans, Sales who had watched the fabled franchise nosedive since the 2000 departure of Patrick Ewing. After attempting a comeback in 2008, Houston retired after one pre-season appearance. David Beckham is the most famous soccer, er, football player in the world. At age 34, after brilliant careers with Manchester United and Real Madrid, during which he won all sorts of championships and cups and other prizes that make little to no sense to anyone this side of the Atlantic, he stunned the world by signing with the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer. The shock was less over his decision to play football, er, soccer in a country that routinely abandons the sport after junior high than the outrageous size of his contract: $250 million over 5 years.