The monetary fun and games of sports

Since the beginning, sports fans have complained about how much money star athletes make.

Back in the ancient Olympics, which we like to believe were all about glory and an olive wreath (athletes being nude made the champ’s wreath extra special), victors actually made a bundle.

According to classics historian David C. Young, Olympic champs in the sixth century B.C. won prizes ‘‘worth 14 years wages for a craftsman.’’ You can guess how that made craftsmen feel.

“Any athlete’s Olympic victory thrust him into the same class as the few extremely wealthy aristocratic landowners,’’ Young writes.

So now we’re in LeBron James and Joe Burrow territory. James, who has been playing basketball since Nero’s time, makes about $125 million a year from salary and endorsements. The guy reportedly has a net worth of $1 billion, which makes him the first NBA player to reach billionaire status while still active.

Burrow, the first pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, makes $55 million in salary from the Bengals. That’s the most in the NFL, part of his five-year, $275 million contract extension.

But don’t weep for Chiefs superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who makes slightly less per year than Burrow but whose 10-year, $450 million contract extension in 2020 will keep him out of the poorhouse. And, of course, that giant contract will be renegotiated upward soon. Mahomes’ endless ads for an insurance company, shampoo, shoes, sunglasses and so on bring him an extra $20 million per year.

And while we’re talking rich athletes or former athletes, we have to mention Michael Jordan. Nothing monetary is complete without MJ.

The cigar-smoking, semi-reclusive, golfing-addicted former Bulls star has a net worth of $3 billion, which, in 2023, placed him at No. 379 on Forbes’ list of the 400 richest people in the United States. It might surprise you, but Jordan made comparatively little money as perhaps the greatest basketball player ever, only $93 million in 15 years, with most of that coming in his last two seasons with the Bulls.

But the Nike Jordan Brand never stops, and the apparel money keeps piling in, year after year. Indeed, his Jumpman brand is there on the shoulders of NBA ‘‘Statement’’ jerseys worn in big games.

Jordan is up in the financial clouds with golfer Tiger Woods, whose net worth is also north of $1 billion. The question for us regular sports-watching humans is simply: Are we ready to cheer for, or focus on, pro athletes not just as athletic stars but as people so wealthy, they don’t exist in our solar system?

It’s an interesting thing because the athletes get paid with money that’s there. It’s real money controlled by other rich guys. And why is it there? Because the games are wonderful, unscripted drama, and we are addicted and will pay.

The money continues to get crazier. The Broncos just dumped quarterback Russell Wilson on the Steelers, paying $38 million to get rid of him.

Does it bother you that NBA guard Chris Paul has made an inflation-adjusted $575 million?

Or that Shohei Ohtani recently signed with the Dodgers for 10 years and $700 million?

It takes some brain adjusting to comprehend the rare air these stars live in, especially in our society, where wealth trumps everything everywhere all the time. Mansions and chefs and trainers and bodyguards and PR flacks. Oh, my.

Soccer star Lionel Messi is a billionaire. So is Cristiano Ronaldo. Old boxer Floyd Mayweather is a billionaire. So’s tennis guy Roger Federer.

They’re phenoms, perhaps. But how about up-and-down quarterback Kirk Cousins, 35, who has never won anything, with his torn Achilles, signing with the Falcons for a reported $180 million for four years, including a $50 million bonus?

All you can say is it’s the market, with market forces at work. And we ourselves drive the market. Turn off your TV, dump your tickets, never click on a sports site — that’s your power of resistance. And it doesn’t matter in the long run because we have never peaked with our mania for sports, contests, gambling, winning.

An interesting hypothetical question for Bears fans: How much would you pay Caleb Williams or Drake Maye if either quarterback came to the Bears and led the team to a Super Bowl championship?

Gazillions, I hear you say?

Life offerings such as first-born children, full facial tattoos, retirement-pension benefactor write-ins?

It’s funny when money meets sports. It gets funnier all the time. Especially when we’re the punch line.