Abbott's $1 million offer from Houston too rich for Chicago Bandits
This time, it was the Bandits who had one stolen right from under their noses. A big one.
Chicago's professional softball team lost its best player, and perhaps one of the best players in National Pro Fastpitch history, Thursday to a financial loophole.
Star pitcher Monica Abbott, who played for the Rosemont-based Bandits from 2011 through last season, was poached by the league's newest team, the Scrap Yard Dawgs of Houston, which is playing its inaugural season this summer.
The Dawgs made a move of historic proportions by signing Abbott to a six-year contract worth $1 million. That makes Abbott the first million-dollar athlete in U.S. women's professional team sports.
Abbott was 16-1 last season for the Bandits with a 0.31 ERA and a perfect game, her second with the team, which won the NPF championship for the third time. Abbott was 75-20 in her five seasons with the Rosemont club. Her career ERA in the league is 0.99.
"I'm a big believer that competitiveness and rivalries is something the league needs more of and this is going to create another rival for us," Bandits general manager Aaron Moore said. "We already have a pretty big rival in the (USSSA Florida) Pride. There's no love-loss there. I could see this being the same thing."
No team in league history has faced a situation quite like the Bandits did with Abbott. They unequivocally wanted their ace pitcher back on the roster, but could not compete with the Dawgs' eye-popping offer.
The team salary cap in the NPF is $150,000. On average, most teams carry about 20 players, which works out to about $7,500 per player, per season.
Abbott, whose contract with the Bandits expired on April 30, will be paid more than 20 times that average, or about $167,000 a year, by the Dawgs.
The Dawgs, who own their own stadium and rent it out for dozens of huge amateur tournaments each year, found a way to get around the salary cap, likely using revenue from those tournaments to do it.
"I believe they structured it (Abbott's contract) to include a lot of personal services contracts, things outside of just playing, like camps, clinics, obligations with their charity, things like that," Moore said. "It's definitely going to be interesting to see how (a deal of this nature) will affect the league in the future. It will be interesting to see if more teams will want to see if they can do that."
In the meantime, Moore is hoping that the publicity of the Abbott deal, which made national news for its historic value, will help the league in general.
"This put the league on the map a little bit (on Thursday)," said Moore, whose team will open the NPF season in Rosemont on June 2 against Houston. "So in that aspect, I'm hoping this is a good thing, more upside than a downside to this. We could use a big league sponsor, like a Coke or a Microsoft. I'd love for this news to draw some attention to the league and have people take a closer look at what we're doing.
"I think we are doing a really good job as a league of trying to show that we really can be on the same level as the other professional leagues. It would be nice if all of us could capitalize off (the news about Abbott)."
Follow Patricia on Twitter @pabcockmcgraw. You can also contact her by email at pbabcock@dailyherald.com