“It has to be baseball,” Legendary NFL player Bo Jackson sees more growth potential in the MLB over football
Former MLB and NFL star Bo Jackson believes the future of baseball is brighter than football as a sport.
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Bo Jackson. (IMAGE: Getty Images)
There have been very few professional athletes who have been able to play two sports simultaneously at the highest level. We have seen such talented athletes who have been freaks of nature play in the NFL, Deion Sanders, and Bo Jackson. The latter who played the running back for the then Oakland Raiders has been known for having played both sports at an extremely high level.
Recently, Bo Jackson appeared in an interview where he spoke in detail about the future prospects of the NFL and the MLB. If anyone knows both sports, it is this man. Bo Jackson is of the firm opinion that baseball has a brighter future than the NFL. He justifies his answers by giving the following reasons:
“Both of them have grown exponentially, and I would say baseball because of the salaries, all the rights. It has to be baseball.” The MLB has been handing out massive contracts to players in recent times. Just to compare, the average salary that a Major League Baseball player received in 2022 was 4.41 million USD, while if you look at the NFL, the average salary stood at $860,000.
Bo Jackson believes the MLB will thrive in the years to come owing to the massive salaries that athletes receive:
The players’ union and collective bargaining agreements are stronger in baseball and athletes have more leverage as compared to the NFL. Due to these factors, it is not surprising why Bo Jackson would state that the MLB has a brighter future when compared to the NFL.
It certainly does not mean that the NFL cannot change that. The league can make changes, such as addressing its disability policy and being more considerate of players’ needs. Take the complaints regarding the turf fields, for instance. Players have long been requesting the league to set guidelines for a standardized turf in order to protect them, however, their requests have not been met with satisfactory action.
Bo Jackson was asked if he would rather be playing in the NFL today or in the MLB. However, he is happy with the way his career panned out and would not wish to pick just one league. “I wouldn’t change a thing, I am who I am because of my past, and if I were to go back and change a thing about my past, I don’t know where I would be.” Will the MLB really surpass the NFL in terms of viewership in the coming years? It is a possibility, but one that is hard to imagine in the current scenario.
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Sumedh Joshi
(2254 Articles Published)