Brady Quinn Says He Would Have Made "A Lot" More Money Playing Baseball [UPDATE]

The compensation discrepancies in baseball and football are a continuing narrative, and they’ve come into focus again the past couple weeks when Jeff Samardzija, an alright but valuably durable pitcher, signed a fully guaranteed $90 million contract. You’ve seen the comparisons with the deals of any number of football stars now, so it’s not worth delving into the specific absurdity.

The economics are fairly cut and dry: Despite the NFL’s greater popularity in aggregate, the MLB has 10 times as many games, as well as a players union that, historically, has been far more formidable. Reports indicate former Texas A&M QB Kyler Murray may have taken notice of that dynamic at an earlier age than others in his position have.

While not expressing regrets about how his career in football went own, Samardzija’s Notre Dame teammate Brady Quinn doesn’t believe it was in his best financial interest. He told TMZ: “It was a blessing and a dream of mine to be able to play professional football, but I would have had a much longer career and made a lot more money if I had gone the baseball route.”

[UPDATE: Quinn says he’s never spoken to TMZ.]

Quinn was an all-conference baseball player in high school, and apparently considered trying out for the Colorado Rockies during the NFL Lockout in 2011. Nevertheless, it’s not as though football left Quinn destitute. His rookie contract alone had $7.75 million in guarantees.

No one can say whether Quinn would have panned out as a professional baseball player if he’d pursued that over football, but he’s not wrong that if he’d made it even as a run-of-the-mill player his earnings would have dwarfed what he made in the NFL.