Got Money? I’ll spend it!

Alex Rodriguez signed a 10-year contract with the New York Yankees for $275 million, plus $30 million in bonus money if he meets certain home run goals. For the sake of the following inanity, let’s pretend that he doesn’t reach those goals. (Maybe he decides he wants to be a the best bunter in the majors or something.) I don’t remember exactly how much time he earned in his previous contract of $250 million, but it’s assumable that at this point, he should have enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life. Now he has an extra $275 million. Let’s help him spend it!

For the purposes of this story, he gets a discount for buying in bulk, so I don't have to figure income tax or sales tax into this.

Monopoly
Really, you can’t start a conversation about wads of money without bringing up Hasbro’s Monopoly. If A-Rod was going to go for broke, and buy Boardwalk and Park Place, he could buy them 366,666 times. And he’d still have $502 left over. But what’s the fun of having Boardwalk and Park Place if you can’t build hotels? Monopoly has a maximum of 12 hotels per game. With his salary, A-Rod could buy 21,538 games of classic Monopoly ($17.99 at Target), buy Boardwalk and Park Place on each one, and put six hotels on each property.

But let’s say he’s feeling a little more whimsical, and he’d rather play some more fun games--without worrying about buying properties and hotels? Well, he could own 15,286,270 copies of the Classic version, 15,997,673 copies of the new “Here and Now” version, or 9,181,970 copies of Yankee Monopoly (he’d have to get someone to pay him for his autograph on the way into the store--he’d be short $1.50).

iPod
A-Rod could buy iPod Shuffles ($79 each) and give one to nearly every person in Los Angeles, CA (2005 population: 3,844,829). I’m sure the 363,817 people who didn’t get one would be a bit upset, but he’s dealt with the boos of more people than that before (2006 Yankees attendance: 4,248,067).

Minimum Wage
If A-Rod decided to work a minimum wage job in New York ($7.25), he’d have to work 12,981 years to earn his wage--that’s 8-hour days, 7 days per week, no overtime pay.

If he were in Minnesota ($5.25), he’d have to work 17,926 years. If he were in New Mexico, Wyoming, or Georgia ($5.15), it would be up to 18,274 years. But it could be worse. Kansas ($2.65) would make him work 35,514 years.

Video Games
Guitar Hero has to be one of the bigger trends out there in the video game world. A-Rod’s got enough money to hold a Guitar Hero party! How many people could he invite, knowing that it’s at most a 2-person game, and he wouldn’t want anyone left sitting bored?

Well, by purchasing a PlayStation2 ($129.99), a 32” LCD television ($549.99), two wireless guitars per console ($59.99--no tripping over cords at this party!), and all four versions of the game I found (Guitar Hero - $39.99, Guitar Hero II - $49.99, Guitar Hero III - $49.99, Guitar Hero 80’s - $49.99), A-Rod could purchase enough equipment and software to throw a party for 277,800 and still have $227.98 to spend on food and drinks.

Of course, A-Rod might consider of foregoing the Guitar Hero fest and having a video game sports fest. If he were to buy The Bigs, he could buy enough equipment and copies of the game for 397,340 games to be played simultaneously! He'll have $685.97 left over to buy drinks. Someone bring the chips!

What self-respecting guy would be without tools? A-Rod needs a hammer, at least. Fortunately, he can get his very own Yankees hammer, for the low price of $27.99, but in case one gets scratched as he’s using it, he can buy 9,824,937 of them--and have $13.44 left over to buy nails!

Baseball
After playing the sport, A-Rod almost might like to attend some baseball games. Getting the most expensive tickets at Yankee Stadium ($400 for the Field Championship level), he could attend 687,500 games (8,487 seasons). If he were feeling cheap, he could attend 22,916,66 games in the bleachers at Yankee Stadium for $12 per ticket (282,921 seasons).

Then again, maybe he’s going cheap. The cheapest tickets in baseball that I know of are the Minnesota Twins Cheap Seats full season ticket package--$250, or $3.09/game. A-Rod could buy season tickets there for the next 1,100,000 years--or would be able to, if the Twins weren’t building a new stadium, so he needs to buy them for the next two seasons.

Okay, A-Rod is busy playing baseball--he doesn't have time to attend games. However, with his salary, A-Rod could pay for the 2007 salaries of the six lowest-payroll teams* in the major leagues--that's one-fifth of MLB teams, and he'd still have $37,992,621 dollars left over. To put that in perspective, the amount he'd have left over is approximately $650,000 more than the Washington Nationals paid for their players in 2007. (Also, since 2000, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays have paid $229,767,201 for their players. That’s right. A-Rod could pay for eight years of Devil Rays baseball--and probably nine, if the 2008 and 2009 Rays payroll doesn’t exceed 2007's.)

*The six lowest-payroll teams are the: Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Florida Marlins, Washington Nationals, Pittsburgh Pirates, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Colorado Rockies.