According to the Denver Post, Peyton Manning will be paid $96 million for 5 years as the Denver Broncos quarterback. That’s $19.2 million per year.
Here’s a Colorado public library perspective on that figure based on 2010 public library data from the Library Research Service:
For each year of his contract, Manning’s annual compensation will exceed the TOTAL annual operating expenditures of ALL Colorado public libraries spending less than $1 million. For those 81 public libraries–70% of the state’s 115–their combined total annual operating expenditures are “only” $17.8 million.
Of the 34 public libraries with annual operating expenditures exceeding $1 million (the remaining 30% of the state’s public libraries), the library for which annual operating expenditures come closest to Manning’s annual pay is Douglas County Libraries, $18.4 million–$800,000 less than Manning will make.
As for the “hometown” library, Denver Public, its $29.5 million in annual operating expenditures would not even pay for two years of the Manning contract.