Alabama coach Nick Saban got Peyton Manning’s time for free. Oklahoma State had to pay a bit more.
According to the Tulsa World, Manning received $105,000 for a 30-minute speech and a 30-minute question-and-answer session in Stillwater. The money was paid by the OSU Speakers Board.
So what did they get in return? Apparently, a laundry list of fairly obvious lines that appear in any of the various motivational books that can be purchased for 99 cents on the clearance shelf.
“I challenge each of you in this arena tonight to invest your time to become a game-changer. A game-changer looks deeper and senses something others don’t and then acts on it.”
“You either get better or worse every day. You don’t stay the same.”
“Enjoy the journey, not the destination.”
“This is your world. Own it.”
Actually, this isn’t our world. It’s Peyton’s world. The rest of us are just paying the rent. At $105,000 per hour.
Seriously, though, we’ll never complain about a guy finding a way to get paid for his time. We’re all worth whatever someone will pay, and OSU’s Speakers Board decided Manning is worth $105,000 per hour. There’s not a thing wrong with Peyton collecting the cash.
But here’s the bigger issue. At a time when the NCAA and various member institutions are fretting about how to afford the inevitable obligation to pay student-athletes, the fact that $105,000 can be scraped together by Oklahoma State for 60 minutes of cliché and rah-rah reconfirms that, when the time comes to cough up fair market value to the kids who are bringing in millions, the schools will find a way.