money???

In a time where finding a job and making ends meet we take a short look at the richest of the sports we watch. The following is a list of the highest paid athletes and teams for the year 2011 in football, basketball, hockey, baseball, and NASCAR. Of course since NHL has a cap all the teams have the same salary, NASCAR we are only concerned with drivers, cause anyone who watches racing knows Chip Ganasi has more money then The Vatican.

NBA:
This one is no contest the player and team both come from the same city and inside the same arena.  The player is Kobe Bryant with an impressive 24.8 million bucks and the Lakers salary is 91.6 million. Not to surprising of a factor considering the talent they have on the team.

NFL:
One of the finer things is life is knowing that the best athlete gets paid more than anyone else in the league. Payton Manning is the highest paid player for this year with a 15.8 million dollar check. As far a overall payroll is concerned the Dallas Cowboys take this hit with an outstanding 136.6 million dollar team. Does this surprise me? No not at all the team is owned by Jerry Jones who if ran for election would probably win simply because he has more money then any other politician in the game. No shocker here in either categories.

NHL:
Those of you who follow the great sport know that the league has a salary cap of 54.6 million of each team, so the only thing we can show you is the highest paid player. Vincent Lecavalier from the Tampa Bay Lightning with a 10 million dollar bring in. Fans who know of him and have been following him since he hit the league in 1998 shouldn't be surprised, he is an outstanding player, does great work for the community and is overall a nice guy. He has a charity through Kanes which every time he scores a goal is 1,000 bucks and an assist is 300. This season he scored 25 goals and had 29 assists which means he donated 33,700 bucks to his foundation.

MLB:
I know i shouldn't even have to post the name OR team cause everyone who knows baseball even a little bit knows both answers to this. Both of them come from the same city, the player is one who, of recent, has had a slight slump in comparison to his earlier career. Alex Rodriguez with a 32 million dollar check. Like I said not surprising at all neither is the Yankees with a 196.6 million dollar payroll. The team decides to buy a championship rather than earn it like other clubs have in the past.  People who know baseball should know this: bout 10 yrs ago a team from Florida, the Marlins, won a championship(i think the year was 1997), and then in the off season sold off all their stars. I think it was bout 6 yrs later won their second with a bunch of no names! This shows that farm systems work. The Rays are another organization who has had success with the farm system. Laughing stock of the MLB a couple years ago, got new head office people and turned the club around. Now the AL east is a 3 way fight.

NASCAR:
Team wise if you watch NASCAR you already know Chip Ganasi has more money than anyone in the sport, I think him and Rick Hendrick are 1 & 2 depending on the week. As far as drivers go it's Dale Earnhardt Jr with a 29 million dollar check, this doesn't not include merch sales or anything else. Junior has been crowned fan favorite driver 8 years straight.

This is just a bit of info for you guys to chew on for a while.

Note:
all information above was provided through an assortment of websites