What Winning The Powerball Can Get You In Boston

With tonight’s Powerball jackpot estimated at $500 million dollars, a lot of people have been flooding gas stations, shopping centers, and drug stores hoping to grab the winning ticket. Tonight’s drawing will offer the third largest Powerball prize in the history of its history, and with millions of people dreaming about what they’d do with all that money we here at Chowder and Champions look at it in a different light.

What could you get with an estimated $500 million dollars? Glad you asked, here are some things (or people) you could buy with all that cash.

Boston Celtics and the NBA

According to HoopsHype.com, the Celtics top three players in terms of salary are Gerald Wallace, Marcus Thornton, and Tayshaun Prince, which is no surprise since Danny Ainge is actively looking to move those players. You could pay Gerald Wallace’s contract (which is valued at $10.1 million) over 50 times over. In fact, you could buy the Celtics entire roster (valued at $65 million dollars) at least 7 times.

If you wanted to go back 7 years ago to the 2007-2008 Boston Celtics team that won the NBA Championship, that team’s total salary was valued at an estimated $75 million. The top three salaries on that team were obviously held by the ‘Big 3’, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen, valued at an estimated $55 million dollars, so based off of those numbers you could purchase the ‘Big 3’s’ salary 9 times.

So clearly with $500 million dollars you can pay the players salary and have plenty left over, so lets take a larger look at what $500 million can get you.

While you can’t buy an entire NBA team with $500 million dollars, you could use that money to buy at a 50/50 ownership split of Tim Duncan’s San Antonio Spurs. Now if you’re not into Texas, if you were interested in the hometown Celtics you could buy a third of the ownership Wyc Grosbeck and watch some of the Celtics on the parquet floor.

Boston Bruins and the NHL

So maybe you’re not into the Celtics or basketball, and more into hockey and the Big Bad Bruins. What could your lottery winnings get you in the hockey world? Well according to Spotrac.com, Tuukka Rask’s contract is an 8 year $56 million dollar contact, so if you wanted the Finnish goaltender to come play goalie for your local pickup game you could give him that $56 million dollars and still have over $440 million dollars left over. Now let’s say you’re not much of a Tuukka Rask fan and instead you’re more of a Niklas Svedberg kind of guy, well what’s his salary compared to Rasks’ salary? Listen to this, Svedberg is under a 1 year $600,000 contract, so if you wanted to you could pay Svedberg’s salary an astounding 833 times!

Taking a larger look at the NHL, you could actually get a lot with your millions of dollars. Let’s say you wanted to move to Florida and buy the Panthers, you could do that according to Forbes.com. Nick Bjugstad and the Panthers are valued at just under $200 million dollars, but maybe your not a fan of the Florida sunshine and want to move to the nation’s capital Washington D.C. could you buy Alexander Ovechkin and the Capitals. While you could buy the Captials, you wouldn’t have any leftover lottery money as they are valued at $500 million dollars. And if you wanted to buy part ownership in the Boston Bruins, you could own about 2/3 of Jeremy Jacobs Bruins, who are valued at $750 million dollars.

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Boston Red Sox and MLB

Let’s move to baseball and the Boston Red Sox, who are undoubtedly one of the most valuable franchises in baseball. Let’s just say you can’t even buy a half of the Boston Red Sox with $500 million, as they are valued at around $1.5 billion dollars. But let’s say you wanted to move to Kansas City, the Royals are coming off an impressive postseason run last year thanks to Billy Butler, Eric Hosmer, and Mike Moustakas so if you wanted to by the Royals you certainly could. The Kansas City Royals, according to Forbes, is valued at just under the $500 million dollars so if you’re a fan of the Midwest, Kansas City could be the city for you.

Looking at the Red Sox specifically, while you can’t buy the entire Red Sox team there are some aspects of the Red Sox that you could purchase that would be good conversation starters. For instance if you wanted to buy, lets say Fenway Park which is valued at $300 million dollars, you certainly could. Imagine owning Fenway Park and sitting on the Monster as guys like David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia hit balls over the Green Monster. Not only that but catching all the soccer matches, as well as summer concerts that are held every summer at Fenway.

New England Patriots and the NFL

If you wanted to buy a piece of the Super Bowl champions it would be a tough task to accomplish, as we all know the NFL is a powerhouse of a league and by far the most popular sport in America. So naturally there team worths are the most expensive throughout America and at the top of the list is Tony Romo’s Dallas Cowboys. Jerry Jones’ team is valued at an ASTRONOMICAL $3.2 BILLION DOLLARS. So while $500 million dollars may seem like a lot (and it is), Jerry Jones would likely laugh if you offered your lottery winnings in exchange for ownership of the Cowboys.

The New England Patriots are number 2 on the list of the most valuable NFL teams, they are valued at around $2.3 million dollars. For Bob Kraft, he not only has the Patriots but he also owns Patriots Place which is home to several shops and restaurants that is sure to up the total net worth of the Patriots owner.

At the bottom of the totem pole, Matthew Stafford and the Detroit Lions are the least valuable NFL franchise valued at $960 million dollars, so even with $500 million dollars you couldn’t buy full ownership of an NFL franchise.

Finally in terms of lifetime salaries, lets take some of the most prominent NFL players and see how far $500 million dollars can get you. In his career, Peyton Manning has earned about $229 million dollars. Eli Manning has earned about $150 million dollars. So just look at that real quick, if you win the $500 million dollar jackpot you’d have more money then both Manning brothers combined! Looking locally at the Super Bowl MVP, Tom Brady who has earned around $150 million dollars while his Super Bowl counterpart Russell Wilson has earned just shy of $1 million dollars. In just 3 years in the NFL, Wilson has earned $950,000 but with his contract up at the end of next season you can be sure that Wilson will be in for a big payday.

So there is a look at what you can get with a $500 million dollar lottery ticket, while I wouldn’t suggest paying for a sports team or its players it would be a nice conversation starter. To all you that played the lottery tonight, good luck and if you win make sure to send a donation to the Chowder And Champions Fund.

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