The salaries of virtually every professional athlete can be found through one avenue or another. And, apparently, if two thirds of The Michael Kay Show had their way, that information would be accessible for broadcasters as well.
While discussing how much MLB players earn for winning the World Series, the topic devolved into how much Kay makes each year.
After telling Don La Greca and Peter Rosenberg players make $516,347 for winning the World Series, the pair hounded Kay about his salary.
“That’s what? Three months salary for you?,” La Greca asked.
“I don’t understand you guys,” Kay said. “You’re very…”
“Very curious about how much you make? Yes,” La Greca interrupted.
“Why are you so curious?,” countered Kay.
“Because if we were baseball players, we’d all know what we make and we could all go to management and negotiate based off that information,” said La Greca. “I can’t do that. What’s different? We’re personalities, we do things publicly, we’re in competition with other radio stations. I don’t understand why you can’t just — right now — tell me how much you’re making. Gerrit Cole can do it. Shohei Ohtani can do it.”
“If Michael would do it, you’d do it right now,” Rosenberg chipped in.
“Without question,” La Greca said.
“Here’s the deal: The great Scott Boras once told me — about representing broadcasters — ‘You guys are your own worst enemy’,” Kay said. “I asked why and he said ‘Because you don’t have a database of what you all make. So, the people that are negotiating with you, they have all the information. They know who makes what. You guys have no idea. Michael, you have no idea what Gary Cohen makes. Gary Cohen has no idea what you make.'”
“Someone needs to stand out, show the cubes — as you like to say — and throw it out there,” concluded La Greca. “Then everybody else will look gutless if they don’t.”
Rosenberg said the downside of sharing their salary on the air is that no matter what the number would be, noting he would be the lowest of the three, listeners “would be sickened” by the number, adding “they don’t think our job is a job, and they’d do it for free”.
