Michael Sam already made history when he became the first openly gay NFL hopeful to get drafted. Now, he’s made even bigger history by signing a monumental contract with the St. Louis Rams, officially making him the NFL’s first openly gay player in history.
According to Huffington Post, the Rams announced the news Thursday, via their Twitter page, sharing that they’d signed all 11 of their draftees to the team. Sam wasted no time sharing the big news with fans announcing his deep appreciation via his Twitter page.
According to Fox Sports, the former All-American defensive lineman definitely has a lot to smile about because the four-year contract he signed is worth $2,650,000 with $46,000 of it guaranteed.
According to ESPN, the Rams took time this year to educate all of their draftees on money management to help them avoid the typical pitfalls of overspending their riches.
“With the new rookie cap and everything it’s really not difficult to get the deals done,” Rams’ coach Jeff Fisher said Tuesday, via Nick Wagoner of ESPN. “So we just felt like this time would be better served putting them in situations from an educational standpoint, financial planning, those kind of things. We’ve done a lot of that.”
Aside from his NFL contract, Sam is also proving to be a lucrative sports star, recently earning a contract with Visa. Sam also has a docuseries with OWN TV on the backburner that he had to postpone in order to secure his chances of a contract with the Rams. Now that the contract is signed, it’s expected that the docuseries will be clear to go into production.
Most importantly, though, Sam’s signing comes as a tremendous triumph to himself and the gay community, and hopefully it won’t be too long before we hear about other LGBT athletes aspiring for the big leagues and getting signed into pro contracts. – nicholas robinson
