Rams got Michael Sams at NFL minimum wage and can exploit him as Mizzou alum bait to boost poor St. Louis attendance

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Patrick Riche, an Economics Professor at the George Herbert Walker School of Business and Technology at Webster University in St Louis, MO, wrote a dollars-and-cents analysis of seventh-round NFL draft pick Michael Sam in a special contribution to Forbes, which you may read in its entirety here. 

Source

...Mr. Sam will not be making much more than minimum wage even if he does make the Rams.  The minimum wage for an NFL player in 2014 is $420,000.  Had Mr. Sam been selected in the first-round of the draft (as 10 of his 12 SEC peers had over the last decade), he would have been guaranteed at least $6.5 million over the next four years.
     ...Based on Mr. Bedard’s feedback, he likely wasn’t first-round material.  Based on Mr. Polian’s feedback, he was far better than a seventh-round pick.
     It is equally plausible that perhaps a partial explanation why the Rams were willing to select Mr. Sam with their last draft pick is tied to geography... given that St Louis is home to a copious amount of Mizzou grads, it is not infeasible that... if Mr. Sam makes the team, it might further influence local Mizzou and Sam supporters to the games.
     And for a team that finished 29th out of 32 teams in attendance at an average of 87.5% of tickets sold, any little thing that could boost home attendance is a welcomed endeavor...

Note: many anti-Sam tweets
also mentioned the University of
Missouri as an object of emnity

     And finally, if I take a turn to cynical-town, could it be that another reason the Rams took a chance on Mr. Sam is that the Rams wanted to engage in a positive public relations tactic (giving Mr. Sam a chance when other teams wouldn’t) at a time when the franchise is under considerable local scrutiny in that ownership could conceivably relocate the team after the 2014 season given the nasty dispute between the team and city which has festered over the last few years.