(UPDATE: Audio of exclusive with the player himself, and the club’s General Manager at this link)
No, this is not a headline from The Onion; or Sports Pickle.
It’s not a typo either, as those numbers you just read are entirely correct. The Windy City Thunderbolts are an unaffiliated minor league baseball club located in Crestwood, Illinois, a southwest suburb of Chicago. Thunderbolts pitcher Clay Chapman has signed a $3.4 billion endorsement deal to be paid out over 10 million years.
That contract works out to $340 dollars a year, thus further validating what you already assumed when you clicked over here- this deal is nothing more than an egregious publicity stunt (but a very clever one!).
Archer Men, a manufacturer of men’s home care products, has signed Chapman to the largest sports endorsement deal of all time; or so they claim.
These kinds of occurrences are exactly what minor league baseball is all about. (You can view the hype video for this endorsement deal over at this link)
From the sometimes insanely weird uniforms on obscure “theme nights” to the ridiculously off-the-wall in stadium promotions, to the ridiculously absurd contracts, it’s all about trying to grab publicity anywhere you can, by any means necessary. It’s a very crowded marketplace in American baseball, as you have the various levels of the minor leagues (A, AA, AAA, Rookie and many more) that comprise the farm system for Major League baseball.
On top of all that, you have the independent leagues, where teams are not affiliated with anybody in MLB.
The Thunderbolts, a member of the Frontier League, are one of these such teams, as their main function is to provide an outlet for college players while school is off session. Hopefully for their sake, this endorsement deal does actually get more people out to see Chapman and the rest of the Thunderbolts this summer.
You can see the over-sized, novelty check for $3.4 billion in the tweetpic below:
https://twitter.com/PaulMBanks/status/847144002747076609
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times and NBC Chicago.com, contributes to Chicago Tribune.com, Bold, WGN CLTV and KOZN.
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