Ex-NBA player and former ESPN analyst Jalen Rose was interviewed on an episode of the “Earn Your Leisure” podcast with Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings in September 2022. At the time of the interview, Rose was an analyst for ESPN. He was laid off from the network in June.
Rose said, “The sports that are predominantly black are the ones that once you get into them, the goal is for you to feed the system and help the system make as much money as possible before you profit.”
“. . . Basketball and football, predominantly black sports, are the main ones with restrictions after high school.”
“. . . For a while, they had dress codes, had a salary cap, couldn’t smoke weed, it had a length of contracts. Like in baseball, you could sign a 10-year deal, in hockey you can sign a nine-year deal, can’t in basketball. In tennis, in golf, in NASCAR, you can turn pro after high school, can’t in basketball and football; they’re gonna force us and this is a residue of slavery.”
“. . . That’s what it is. They’re gonna force you to feed and pay the system as long as possible. When you graduate from high school, there are so many players who have shown that you can go to the league and be successful.”
Rose reposted the clip in November on X.
Rose’s position is misleading as he uses buzzwords like “slavery” and “predominantly black sports” to sensationalize his argument. Players in the NBA, a predominantly black league, get paid more than athletes in hockey, tennis, golf and NASCAR for many reasons such as revenue, roster size and marketing.
Revenues in professional sports
Los Angeles Lakers forward Lebron James’ 2023-2024 season salary is $47.6 million, compared to the NHL’s highest-paid athlete, Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche, who will earn $16.5 million this season.
The NHL has a smaller revenue stream so there’s less money available for players’ salaries compared to the NBA, MLB and NFL.
“The main two sources of revenue for pro sports teams are broadcasting rights for television and game ticket sales. The NHL receives a much smaller share of revenue from the different TV broadcasting networks,” according to Hockey Question.
For example, according to SB Nation, for the 2016-2017 NBA season, the NBA projected revenues of around $8 billion while the NHL’s projected revenue was around $4 billion. NBA profits are largely due to its massive internet and global presence and its new television contract with TNT, ESPN and ABC.
NBA players are the highest-paid athletes in the world, outpacing other professional sports leagues like the NFL, MLB and Premier League. Players in the NBA make approximately three times more than NHL players annually.
In golf, players don’t sign contracts that guarantee a certain level of income like NBA and NFL players. This statement from Back 2 Basics excludes any brand endorsements:
“Tour golfers must earn their income by making enough cuts during the year. And if they miss too many cuts in a row, they risk losing their tour card and will have to re-qualify for it.”
An average PGA Tour player’s annual winnings is approximately $1.5 million, while the top money earner in 2022-2023 made over $21 million.
NASCAR drivers depend on sponsorships and winnings from race purses to get paid according to Sportscasting. The highest-paid driver, Kyle Busch, earns $16,900,000 annually and the typical driver makes $112,038 according to Diario As and Rookie Road.
Perfect Tennis reports the average salary for a professional men’s tennis player in 2021 was $185,106. The average NBA player makes $10.8 million annually, according to Statistica.
Roster size and salary cap
Another reason why NBA players make so much more money in annual salary compared to other professional sports is attributed to the league’s roster size.
NBA rosters are smaller than NFL, NHL, MLB and MLS rosters, so teams in those respective leagues have to spread out their player salary budget more than NBA teams do, as the article from Hockey Question referenced.
The official active NHL roster size is 23, with up to 50 total players under contract. The official active NBA roster size is 12 with a total maximum of15 players under contract, while the NFL has around 50 and the MLS rosters 30.
Speaking of contracts, there is a “hard” cap on how much one NBA player can make, but teams are allowed to exceed the “soft” cap of their rosters if they’re willing to pay a “luxury tax”. NHL teams have a hard cap on both individual players and teams, totaling $83.5 million per team and $16.7 million per player in 2023-2024. The NBA has a soft cap of $136 million per team and a hard limit of $47.6 million for a player who has 10 or more years of playing service in the league.
A hard cap is the payroll limit owners can spend on players, a rule employed by both the NFL and NHL. Conversely, the NBA’s salary cap can be exceeded when a team resigns their own players, known as “Bird rights”. For example, the team salary cap was set at $112.4 million for the 2021-2022 NBA season, but the Golden State Warriors team salary totaled over $175 million that year.
Sports marketing
The marketing power of NBA stars such as LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant is far greater than those of the NHL, NFL and MLB.
A piece from SB Nation argues NBA players’ above average height makes them more visually appealing to the public. Fans can visually identify them more easily compared to NFL and NHL players who wear helmets, which partially hides their distinctive identity.
In addition, NBA players are privy to a variety of endorsement deals, the most lucrative of which is for sneakers. One reason why basketball player shoes are so popular is because they are suitable for street wear. Baseball, football and soccer players wear cleats, which can’t be used in everyday life.
Popularity is extremely synonymous with marketing these sports. The more players you can name, the more marketable the sport is to a mainstream audience.
The ‘victim’ narrative
Jalen Rose’s take on the mistreatment of athletes in so-called “black sports” is wrong, using buzzwords such as “slavery” to emotionally appeal to his audience. His promotion of an agenda misleads his audience and includes encouraging basketball players to skip college and go straight from high school into the NBA.
Conservative media personality Larry Elder alluded to this idea on the “Rubin Report” with Dave Rubin when he said left-wing politicians such as Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama tell black people they are the victims. They use terms such as “social justice”, “racist white cops”, “systemic racism” and “discrimination” to describe issues facing the black community.
Contradicting the popular progressive narrative, Elder argues the breakdown of the “nuclear family” is the impetus for challenges facing the African American community.
Whenever the media uses terms that promote the harmful connotation of a group, I call for people to question its legitimacy so we can be informed of the truth about the world around us.
Am I wrong, Jalen Rose? Or am I just misinformed?
Featured image: Photo by Edgar Chaparro on Unsplash
Edited by: James Sutton
