Ultimately, it's a small team that needs to make money to survive, and i totally understand why they did that.
For them, that money means being able to manage the team with peace of mind for at least 3 years, and that's obviously priceless if you think about it.
They always look at their wallets not out of greed but to know if they are financially covered.
Normal, I wold say. Let's just say that's their mission: to discover talent, nurture it, and sell it at the best possible price. So, from my humble perspective, they ended up winning somehow, no complaints about that. They took home the money.