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#1
01-06-2014, 07:30 PM
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Earnings VS Salary
Here's an interesting comparison of the salary of some great Hall Of Fame baseball players who played in 1920 VS Thoroughbred earnings that year.
Babe Ruth's salary for 1920: $20,000 (in his 7th MLB season, he hit 54 Home Runs and had a .376 batting average for the New York Yankees) Ty Cobb's salary for 1920: $20,000 (In his 16th MLB season, and fresh off of 8 battling titles in his last 9 seasons, Ty Cobb's batting average dipped to just .334 in 1920) "Shoeless" Joe Jackson salary for 1920: $8,000 (In his 13th MLB season, he posted a brilliant .382 Batting average. However, he was banned from baseball after the 1920 season. They accused him of taking part in a 1919 World Series fix. Walter Johnson salary for 1920: $16,000 (in his 14th MLB season, and fresh off of 10 straight 20+ win seasons) Meanwhile, 26 different North American thoroughbreds earned more than $20,000 that year. The chief earner, Man O' War, banked $166,140 and was lightly campaigned for his day. 10 years later, in 1930, Gallant Fox banked $308,275 in his 3-year-old season. Meanwhile, Lou Gehrig, in his 8th season, made $30,000 playing for the New York Yankees. Sysonby banked $144,380 in his 3-year-old season of 1905. Ty Cobb's MLB career started in 1905. It took Ty Cobb all the way until the very end of his 1919 season, to surpass with salary, the earnings of Sysonby's 1905 season. Fast forward to 2013. According to Equibase, the leading earner in North America racing was Mucho Macho Man with $2,984,000 Alex Rodriguez $29 million owned the leading salary of 2013. Cliff Lee $25 million was 2nd. Johan Santana, Vernon Wells, and CC Sabathea all made over $24 million. Teixiera, Prince Fielder, and Mauer $23 million. At one time, baseball and horse racing owned the day to day Sports coverage in the news, that's obviously not the case anymore. Football and basketball have emerged, while horse racing and boxing have fallen. Television is surely a big reason why baseball revenue is what it is, and players salaries are what they've become. However, racing lost bookmaking and they poisoned the new pari-mutuel system by constantly raising takeout rates. Competition with gambling was always there when horse racing was in it's prime. It just took the blame as horse racing starting to constantly choose to steadily make itself a less competitive gambling game in the 1930's through today. 
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#2
01-06-2014, 07:43 PM
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Very interesting however the 20000 dollars in 1920 would be about 250000 today. Would revenue for horse racing today compared to 90 years ago make Mucho Mach Mans 2.9 million he earned this year more or less impressive?.
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#3
01-06-2014, 11:46 PM
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Quote:
All of that stuff was extremely popular, but it happened in pool halls, between bookmakers and bettors who relied on telegraphs to know what the results were. They were everywhere, in virtually every city. Card games and slots machines exited in backrooms in virtually every city. Technology should lead to more revenue, not stagnation.
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#4
01-06-2014, 11:54 PM
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Baseball (and other sports) salaries were tightly controlled and artificially depressed until the advent of Free Agency brought about by Curt Flood's legal challenge of the reserve clause which tied a player to the team which held his rights forever.
Buckpasser was champion 2 yo in 1965, champion 3yo and horse of the year in 1966 and champion older horse in 1967. He earned $568,096 in 65, $669,078 in 66 and $224,840 in 67. Willie Mays who was arguably the best baseball player in the mid 60's (from 1962-1966 he led the majors in WAR for position players) earned $90,000 in 1965, $105,000 in 1966 and $105,000 in 1967.
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#5
01-07-2014, 12:30 AM
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Quote:
Mays earned 666k for his season that year.
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