Wow - this is an amazing situation - a team in Greece can pay more money for an NBA player than an NBA club. The Euro is so strong this year that everything that is made or sold in America seems like a great bargain.
The global economy in countries such as China, Russia and Germany is strong. The Canadian dollar is still strong to par. Get ready for a lot more real estate to be sold to people and organizations from around the world. Get ready for a lot more surprise signings in sports a la Jaromir Jagr playing in Russia instead of New York and now Josh Childress going to play in Greece. At the end of the day, no matter what anyone says, it IS always about the money. And right now, other economies are just so much stronger than our economy.
Economy, what economy? Take a peek at your currency. Money based on what? The Good Faith and Credit of the United States. When you pay the population with a worthless check you end up with the people working for worthless paper.
In the end we all fall for it. We think that the dollars we are paid are real until someone or a lot of someones say we don’t take your currency.
The world is catching on that paper currency backed by a promise is nothing more than a sham.
Russia’s market is down 14.8% this year, so Russia’s economy ain’t exactly hot either.
It’s all about money, not the economy. Jagr and Childress could make millions more playing overseas than what they were being offered here, so they took it. If they were offered an identical contract by an American and a foreign team, I’d be willing to bet they’d have stayed.
Where would you rather live, New York or Siberia?
We are losing our best players in hockey to the NHL and now to the KHL. Our hockey teams in Germany don’t have the money to sign good players. The richest team in german hockey has only $6 million available to sign players.
On what basis are other economies so much stronger than the US economy? There are so many that want the US economy to become unimportant or less important in the world that they will distort the picture.
The Euro may look strong but the individual economies of Europe have been contracting. Our own US expansion (incremental gain) recently was more than the entire output of the over popularized and over promoted Chinese economy.
Are athletes going to play in other countries really a function of the strength of the country or the major bankrolls backing the leagues. Time will tell. We have free markets (for the most part) that allow achievement and productivity. If other countries would just duplicate that, they would be wealthy nations as well and their people’s quality of life would be on par with the US quality of life. It’s simple really. Capitalism – works everywhere it is tried.