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I believe the travel game meal money this year is about $106.00 The knee jerk re-action to this $ amount is to say or think to yourself "wow, that is ridiculous". Why and how would a major league team pay their players "meal money"

The reality of the topic is that each player is expected to pay a club house fee at each stadium (including their own) of approximately $50.00 each day. And if you can imagine if a player orders anything off of the (expensive hotels they typically stay in) room service menu, it is pretty expensive even for a burger and fries.

In addition, any player that leaves tickets for family and friends at any ball park (home or away) is now expected to pay an $12.00 "tax" on the tickets. Typically that tax is paid for by the players "meal money". So you can see that the $106.00 is really hardly enough to cover all of that.

Also, keep in mind that players only receive the meal money on away games. The ticket tax, club house fee, etc.... is still in effect at home games.

Further, Most if not all cities have stated that players are earning a portion of their salaries in their cities when they play their so the players have to pay income tax in each city that they play in and their agents earn between 3 and 5% of their "gross" income.

All together, players pay roughly 50% of their gross income in overhead. The league minimum is roughly $375,000 but the average salary is about 2 million a year. So all being said, it's still a good deal!

Hope this helps.

13 years ago. Rating: 1
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