When an athlete enters the professional ranks, they likely have to undergo some initiations as the new guys on the team. One of those things could be the rookies paying for dinner for the rest of the team. And depending on the team, some of those players may run up the bill simply because they can. For example, Fred Taylor revealed that when he was with the Patriots, Tom Brady would get an expensive bottle of wine (between $3,000 and $5,000), take one sip, and leave just to run up the bill.
Defenders of the practice will claim it’s a team bonding experience or that it’s done because the veteran players had it happen to them. Torrey Smith isn’t one of those people and he spoke out against rookie dinners due to its hypocritical nature. That rookies, where some of them are coming from lower-income families and might be financially illiterate, are now expected to pay five figures for a team dinner because of reasons but yet everyone is concerned about players going broke after they retire.
Smith thanked Anquan Boldin for setting a positive example when Smith was a rookie on the Baltimore Ravens.
Rookie dinners are BS! I’m glad I had an OG that realized teaching me to blow money is STUPID! It does not prove you belong on a team. Shout out to @AnquanBoldin !
Dudes come into the league with no financial literacy and real problems but folks think 50k dinners are cool! NAH!
— Torrey Smith (@TorreySmithWR) June 21, 2022
It’s difficult to argue with Smith. Even if it’s the first overall pick and he’s getting tens of millions on his rookie contract along with a signing bonus, it’s probably not the best idea to have one of their first big purchases be a very expensive dinner where your teammates are trying to run up the bill. For most players, their football career is very short and many players wind up going broke, so it might be more important to set an example from the start to be good with money and maybe not subject someone to pay for a $5,000 bottle of wine that you take a single sip of.
This is why people want to do away with various forms of hazing. While this isn’t necessarily mentally or physically abusive, it is a practice being done by many simply because the same thing happened to them when they were rookies.
