And You Thought Football Spent Alot

Every summer and winter in the transfer windows there is an amazing amount of money spent by Premier League clubs as they strengthen their squads either ahead of a new season or halfway through a season as they work towards their goals be it safety challenges or glory pushing.

One thing that has changed for us as a club since we came into the Premier League is the wages that we pay players. As we become more competitive and stay longer in the division then the wage demands go up and now contracts in excess of £2.5m per year will be commonplace.

And, of course, we know that we will not be the highest paying employers in the division with the cash rich clubs paying potentially four times that to their real stars as well as not really blinking at paying over £20m for one player.

But a look at the NBA in America almost seems to put that in the shade. When we were looking at the figures yesterday for the most watched teams in the States we came across this Tweet which I think sums it all up in less than 140 characters

£900m worth of deals is a huge amount of money so we went searching to see what kind of deals were being struck on the first day and came across this

1. Power forward Anthony Davis accepted a five-year, $145 million extension to stay with the Pelicans.
2. Power forward Kevin Love accepted a five-year deal, $110 million deal to stay with the Cavaliers.
3. Small forward Jimmy Butler accepted a five-year, $90 million deal to stay with the Bulls.
4. Point guard Goran Dragic accepted a five-year, $90 million deal to stay with the Heat.
5. Power forward Draymond Green accepted a five-year, $85 million deal to stay with the Warriors.

Those 5 deals alone are worth over $500 million over varying periods but the top one at $29 million per year will earn Mr Davis a cool £350k per week over the term of the deal. Not bad work if you can get it.

And it certainly puts some of the deals done in the Premier League into perspective - not to say that they couldn't come down a bit but proof that the money these days is in professional sport.

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