Shall we expect Occupy Wall Street protests of these highly-paid 1 percenters in American sports? Are they willing to pay more into the federal tax system? After all, OWS argument should be, who do sports figures owe for their success and their generous bank accounts?
Baseball's opening-day payrolls will exceed $3 billion for the first time this season, jumping more than 7 percent from last season and redistributing the windfall from landmark local television deals across the sport, according to a Yahoo! Sports analysis.
Using Baseball Prospectus' contract database, arbitration projections from MLB Trade Rumors and expected salaries for the remaining free agents likely to garner major-league contracts, Y! Sports estimates opening-day payrolls of teams' 25-man rosters will total about $3.15 billion, a 7.1-percent increase from last year's opening-day figure of $2.94 billion.
More than half of the increase comes from the Los Angeles Dodgers, whose projected $213 million payroll is the highest in the major leagues – and a 123.9-percent increase over their $95.1 million from opening day in 2012. The Dodgers signed the richest free-agent deal of the offseason, giving starter Zack Greinke a six-year, $147 million deal.
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