Search icon

Sport

22nd Sep 2015

NFL mascot sacked after demanding a raise of more than 1,000%

Kevin Beirne

This may be the strangest contract dispute in all of sports.

Joe Juranitch has parted ways with the Minnesota Vikings after more than 20 years of playing the NFL team’s real-life mascot.

Juranitch believes he deserves more money for entertaining Minnesota fans for over two decades as a motorcycle-driving viking named Ragnar.

Carolina Panthers v Minnesota Vikings

Up until now, Ragnar Juranitch was collecting the tidy sum of $1,500 per game – that’s $15,000 a year, with the potential for more if his team makes the playoffs.

So what kind of raise was he looking for? Well, apparently Juranitch was looking for an astonishing $20,000 a game for the next ten years.

Unsurprisingly, the team said no since everybody knows that there’s only one mascot worth that kind of money…