Richie Allen Quotes

I got an offer in 1992 to buy a major-league team. I turned down the offer because I don't want my love of the game to involve business.

After 12 years in the major leagues, I do not feel that I am a piece of property to be bought and sold regardless of my wishes.

It's a business. But as a player, it sucks to know you were just thrown into a trade for it to work.

I mean, sports are big, big, big business.

Once you've been around this business long enough, anything is a possibility. It's a business first and foremost. Guys play it because they love it, but it is a business, and if you don't understand that it's a business, you're lying to yourself.

Unlike any other business in the United States, sports must preserve an illusion of perfect innocence.

In the NFL a lot of times everyone gets caught up in the business side of things. For them it's all about money and it really leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

Come on, when does it come to the point where your name can't come up in trade talks? Willie Mays got traded. Pedro Martinez got traded. So what? That's part of the game.

Professional sports is a business.

In my opinion, baseball is as big a business as anything there is. It has to be a business, the way it is conducted.

I feel like in the NFL, they preach loyalty and family and they have none for you. As a player, you see it's not a family during negotiations, how it becomes them versus me or me versus them. That's part of the NFL I believe the fans don't see.

I am not going to lie: I know that there are clubs that want to sign me and can match Real Madrid's demands. But that's up to my representatives and the club. I will stay if the club wants me to stay.

I do not think any thinking individual buys a sports franchise, or an English football club, to make money.

In the back of my mind, I always knew I wanted to be in the sports representation business. Being an ex-player, I knew that those were the people I wanted to work with.

Sport is an entertainment, in one sense. But it's also a business.

You get traded. It happens. It's part of the business.

We all play football to get money.

Frankly, I loved playing there. The Americans are incomparable for the sport's business, and they're beginning to truly love football.

The fact of the matter is that people don't understand that football players are regular people just like them. And half of them don't understand the business. And most of them just want you to entertain them.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a living New York team owner the fans like.

The UFC makes 80, and athletes make 20. That's what happens. That's the real story.

Leaving Manchester United? That was not complicated.

My job as a former player is to help young players understand about the business.

The NFL is a business and I accept it for what it is.

If I get traded, I get traded. It's a part of the business.