It’s a simple fact that today’s world of professional sports is a multi-billion dollar business and one of its main components is free agency for the athletes.

The era in which players remain loyal to their franchises is gone and when loyalty does occur, it is a rarity rather than the norm.

This has become blatantly clear in the past few weeks with the pending NBA trading deadline. Teams are attempting frantically to bolster their rosters for the playoff run, as well as ridding themselves of would-be free agents who would probably not re-sign with the club.

Two years ago, the Orlando Magic were in the NBA Finals on the strength of Shaquille O’Neal. The Magic were unable to come up with the $100 million plus that the Lakers were able to dish out, and now are toiling in mediocrity. This event sent a shock wave throughout the league and its teams.

This past week, the Toronto Raptors traded away one of the top young point guards in the NBA, Damon Stoudamire, for others who are not the caliber of Stoudamire and one player who won’t even play in Toronto.

The Raptors were forced to make this move because at the end of the season Stoudamire was going to be a free agent.

The reason they did this was because they were afraid he would not re-sign and the Raptors didn’t want a replay of what happened to the Magic.

It seems in almost every trade, not only do teams look for quality players, but perhaps even harder to make room under the salary cap.

This happens in other sports as well. Major league baseball and the NFL have also been affected by free agency.

Even though free agency has been incredibly lucrative for the players, it has been extremely damaging for smaller market teams, especially in MLB.

In last year’s playoffs only the teams with the highest pay roles were participating, with the exception of the Houston Astros, which were easily swept by the mega-million conglomerate, the Atlanta Braves.

A perfect example of what happens to teams that struggle with free agency is the Florida Marlins. Last season, they won the World Series, but lost money. In the off-season, the Marlins had to dump the heart of team due to their large contracts.

Money is not as big of a problem for the NFL due to their new billion dollar contracts with Fox and CBS. In addition, the contracts for football players are not as large as the other two big sports.

But superstars who jump from team to team are not common.

Nothing I’ve said is any sort of revelation. Contracts for professional athletes have increased for years and will certainly continue to do so.

As long as people continue to watch sports and are willing to pay the high prices for tickets and pay-per-view events, the contracts will continue to rise.

Teams are obviously making money through the television contracts, ticket revenue and the sale of team paraphernalia, but the reason the ticket prices are so high is in part to pay for the players’ incomes.

A perfect example to show how much NBA contracts have grown is the one-year contract Michael Jordan signed that paid him more money than he had earned in his entire career.

There is only a handful of veteran mega stars that you can bet will stay with their respective teams such as Karl Malone, John Stockton, Patrick Ewing and David Robinson. Everyone else is “up for grabs” every time their contracts are up for re-negotiation.

I think it is great that players are getting as much money as they possibly can. No one can be blamed for trying to cash in. Hell, it is the American way.

However, I feel it certainly takes away from the purity of the game.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could go back in time and watch a good ball game for a few bucks and not have to look in the program week to week to find out who the new players are?

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Scott Johnson is a senior in liberal studies from Holstien.