Ernesto Valverde Quotes

Well, everybody is trying to make this a money thing. If you send me to another team, let's see what I ask for. I won't ask for nothing. I'll play under the same terms. So it is not Gary wants more money. Gary has money. What else do I need?

And my rookie contract, my first rookie contract was for $5,000.

You don't want to get to the point where you play out your contract and you get to those complicated situations where they can put the franchise tag on you and things like that.

It's not very wise to keep a player who has just one year left on his contract and really wants to leave.

This is the business of football and nothing is guaranteed to you as a player, coach or anybody else. They don't have to give you the money. They don't have to give you a longterm contract.

If you work for Google or Apple, stock options give you a chance to share in the increasing value of the company. In the N.F.L., nothing like this happens; the players, though rich, are just working stiffs like the rest of us.

As a player, you should look at the teams you might want to play for. The city you may want to live in. The system you may want to play in. The economy. The cost of living. Everything. It's about what's best for you.

The people who run the game, they are the ones who want to change it and make people believe that it's different somehow. It's not different, the only difference is that some ballplayers today have a chance for a four- or five-year contract and they can make big money.

Our economics are not baseball's economics. Our game is not baseball's game. Our owners are not baseball's owners, with one or two exceptions. Our union is not baseball's union. What we do has to be crafted and suited to address hockey, to address the NHL, to address our 30 teams and our 700-plus players.

Unfortunately, there are no mulligans when it comes to pro football contracts.

Free agency screws everybody's allegiances up. Whether it be football, baseball, hockey, basketball, whatever it may be. It's really hard.

It took a long time to get out of my contract. The producers thought I was negotiating for more money.

Rather than saying that the commissioner is hired by the owners and therefore is subservient to them, you have to look at whether or not the players are getting a fair shake.

I've got to play free agency out, and I've got to look at all of my options.

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.

The two major things that changed the makeup of all professional sports are money generated by television and courts that players went to in order to win their freedom as free agents.

The NBA believes if you play for a team and get paid by a team, you're the property of that team for 24 hours a day.

Get a lawyer to look at your contract or beware. Because no company - evil or not - is going to do it for you.

I learned about the market's power when I was traded to the Buffalo Bills for $100.

The owners said that they wanted the salary cap and refused to promise that they would abide by the rules of the just-expired contract after the season ended. Believing we had no choice, the players went on strike in August of 1994.

I'm realistic. And realistically, I'm not that type of player that earns that type of money any more. So I'd be willing to take a little cut to get a couple of extra years.

In all my years of being with Pittsburgh, I never encountered a player taking a contract dispute into the season and letting that dispute affect the way he played.

And then came the nineties, when management, suddenly frightened that they had ceded control to the players, sought to restore baseball's profitability by 'running the game like a business.'

A lot of players know I've been around 13 years and this is my second lockout. I got a lot of respect. I know what's going on both for the league and the union.

Pro basketball is a very mercenary endeavor.