For weeks, the sports wanted to know if Kyler Murray would forego a future in Major League Baseball and take his talents to the National Football League. Despite their best efforts, the Oakland Athletics couldn’t persuade him to choose Baseball.
It turns out they tried their hardest and threw out an insane amount of money to change his mind.
Via Sports Illustrated:
“According to a source close to the family, the A’s contingent that visited Kyler in January offered him a contract worth $14 million in guaranteed cash, in addition to his signing bonus. (The deal would have required that Oakland take the extreme step of adding Murray to its 40-man roster and would have paid out a figure similar to that of a top 10 NFL draft pick.
“Ninety-six percent of kids who just signed a $4.6 million deal to play baseball wouldn’t have been on no football field the following fall,” says Kevin Murray. “How can people question his love for the game?”
Adds Missy, “Circumstances change. Nobody knew he’d be in the position he is.”
That position: Now that Kyler is publicly committed to football, he has to repay Oakland $1.29 million of the $1.5 million they’ve already given him and forfeit the remaining $3.16 mil. (The A’s declined to comment on whether that money has already been returned.)”
Even though Oakland selected him with the No. 9 pick in the 2018 MLB Draft, the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback will await his fate later this month to find out if the Cardinals plan on taking him with the #1 overall draft pick and trade Josh Rosen, the QB they took just last year.
