Because it always goes up in the end. I don’t mean this in a condescending way but how old are you?
In 2008, Wade Redden made everyone shit their pants by signing a ginormous 6 year, $39 million contract. He clearly failed to live up to his contract. As a contrary example with a successful player before Redden, Nick Lidstrom routinely was on $6-8m a year contracts despite being the best defenseman of a generation.
As time goes on, more money comes into sports. It’s easy to look at something frozen in time and think “well geez, last year so and so got XYZ dollars, what a rip off.” It’s hard to realize that, even with a flat cap, these players don’t give a shit and their agents know fine well that the cap goes up over time. More money will come to the sport, and if you want them on your team, you will give them a slice of the cake. Aaron Ekblad got north of $80 million for being “good” and having proved little at the time of his contract, with the Panthers knowing fine well that he goes for $12 million in those out years if he lived up to the hype.
Shouldn’t be surprising at all, IMO.
