Wealth & Money Quote by Dick Schaap

Schaap doesn’t moralize; he shrugs with the clarity of someone who’s watched too many bright careers get converted into brand equity. “Today, it’s money” lands like a verdict on an era when the romance of the fight game - grit, pride, escape - has been repackaged as a revenue stream. The bluntness is the point. By stripping away euphemism, he frames boxing less as sport than as one of the last crude meritocracies: if you can do violence artfully, you can get paid. Not respected, not protected, paid.

The throwaway detail about endorsing “a grill that cooks hamburgers and steaks” is Schaap’s scalpel. It’s funny, specific, a little degrading - and that’s the subtext. The modern athlete’s alternative to the ring isn’t poetry or public service; it’s hawking kitchen gadgets. He’s exposing the narrow pipeline for working-class fame: risk your brain for purses, or rent your face to consumer goods. Either way, the marketplace wins.

Context matters because Schaap is writing as a sports journalist steeped in boxing’s long con: promoters, belts, pay-per-view, and the constant sale of “big fights” that arrive late or damaged. The line “if you’re good” is doing extra work, too. It implies the bargain is conditional and cruel: excellence is required, but the body still pays the fee. Schaap’s intent is not to glamorize the ring; it’s to explain why people keep entering it when the costs are obvious. The money isn’t incidental - it’s the only rational part of an irrational enterprise.