Bobby Bonilla isn't the only former pro athlete who collected an annual payment each July 1 from a contract long since over.
The Buffalo Sabres traded for and signed defenseman Christian Ehrhoff to a 10-year, $40 million contract in June 2011.
He wasn't interested in the Sabres' rebuild and Buffalo wasn't interested in the "cap-recapture penalties" implemented in the 2013 collective bargaining agreement. The team used a compliance buyout in June 2014 after just three seasons of the 10-year contract.
Though Ehrhoff doesn't count toward the Sabres' salary cap, he is on their payroll for $857,143 annually through the 2027-28 season, which is paid July 1.
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Happy Christian Ehrhoff Day too! #Sabres pay him his annual installment of $857,143 from his 2014 compliance buyout ($0 on the cap). He gets five more. Last one on July 1, 2027. https://t.co/3l7PIHGS7P
— Mike Harrington (@ByMHarrington) July 1, 2022
“The fact that he quite frankly doesn’t want to be here makes it easy,” then-GM Tim Murray told The News at the time of the buyout. “I’ve said at the start that if you don’t want to be here we’ll make it happen. He’s made, I believe, $22 million in three years and feels that we’re not going in the right direction, but he really hasn’t had much part in the direction the team has gone. So time to move on.”
He had 16 goals and 87 points in 192 games in three seasons with Buffalo.
After helping Germany win an Olympic silver medal and reaching the playoffs in the German elite league in 2018, Ehrhoff announced his retirement that March at age 35.
Bonilla, 59, is paid $1,193,248.20 from the New York Mets every July 1 from 2011 to 2035. Thirteen years and more than $15.5 million remain in payments, though Bonilla has not played for the Mets since 1999.
