It’s often said that players in MLB “make too much money.” In relationship to some professions (teachers often get cited), the relationship in pay gets brought up. Of course, when you really think about it, MLB is really a form of entertainment. It’s a capitalism thing – supply and demand – if people didn’t pay the money they did to watch games and purchase merchandise, well… players wouldn’t make as much.

But, with the Fielder signing, I made the comment to my Baseball Prospectus brethren that “the AL had gone bat-s%$# crazy” in terms of spending.”

Rebecca Glass responded by asking, “Have you thought about looking at how some of the salaries add up compared to the gross-domestic product (GDP) of some small countries?” I said I hadn’t but it would be a fun look.

To that end, Rebecca hit Wikipedia and came up with below.

If you combine A-Rod’s current deal, plus the recent Pujols and Fielder signings, you come up with a total contract amount of $729 million. These countries have a GDP less than that:

In Millions

Source: Wikipedia
Special thanks to Rebecca Glass

Maury Brown is the Founder and President of the Business of Sports Network, which includes The Biz of Baseball, The Biz of Football, The Biz of Basketball and The Biz of Hockey. Hewrites for Baseball Prospectus and is a contributor to Forbes SportsMoney blog.. He is available as a freelance writer. Brown's full bio is here. He looks forward to your comments via email and can be contacted through the Business of Sports Network (select his name in the dropdown provided).

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Comments (3)

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written by Dave e, January 26, 2012

Maybe they could buy one of those islands when they retire.

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Economists would be ashamed
written by JTO, January 26, 2012

Did you forget what you learned in Econ 201? You just compared GDP (which is calculated on a yearly basis) to three players combined TOTAL contracts, which span about 30 years combined.

When you look at it on an annual basis, it breaks down like this:
2012 Salary
Pujols - 12 million
Fielder - 23 million
Rodriguez - 30 million

This adds up to 65 million. This means that their combined salary is only bigger than one countries GDP. Important to note, Tuvalu has a population of 10,000.

We all know MLB players are overpaid, but you just compared apples to oranges with this article.

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Ha
written by MauryB, January 26, 2012

This was all fun. If it was an Econ 101 thing, we'd have never done it. There's a host of things going on with the contracts outside of this.

The phrase for the day: Lighten up. It's almost the weekend

-- Maury

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