NFL Player Salaries Fall Short of MLB, NBA

All Sports Unions Are Not Created Equal

Apr 22, 2009

Of the "Big 3"sports in the United States of America, football is the most dangerous game. The players are not compensated as such.

The three most popular sports in the United States are football, basketball and baseball. Each professional league has player’s unions, whose goal is to provide the most favorable working conditions and contracts for the athletes. While the Major League Baseball (MLB) and National Basketball Association’s (NBA) player’s unions have been widely successful, the National Football League’s (NFL) player’s union has not.

Career Monetary Statistics:

The average MLB player plays for nearly 6 seasons. The average salary is $3 million dollars. During the course of his career, the average professional baseball player will earn $18 million dollars.

The average NBA player enjoys a career that spans 5 years. The average player will earn nearly $4 million dollars per year, providing average career earnings of $20 million.

The average NFL player plays only 3 years. He stands to make $770,000 a year, bringing the average career earnings of an NFL player to $2,310,000 – a mere 12% of the MLB player and 11% of an NBA player.

Physical Considerations

American football has the lowest average career span for a reason. Baseball is a non-contact sport. Basketball is a contact sport. Football is a collision sport.

The average NFL player stands nearly 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 245 pounds. NFL players have been electronically timed at running at speeds of over 20 miles per hour on the field. 20 miles per hour may be excessive for the average NFL player, so say most of the men can run at a speed of 15 miles per hour. Now imagine a 240-pound man, sprinting at 15 miles per hour, collides into the average 5-foot-nothing, 100-and-nothing pound individual. The end result would look like a car wreck.

Shoulder pads and helmets can only absorb so much of the collisions these men take thousands of times over the course of a career. It’s no wonder why NFL players suffer more frequent and more serious injuries than NBA or MLB players. Given that the NFL players put themselves at greater risk, shouldn’t they earn a bigger piece of the monetary pie?

Union Talks

NFL salaries, unlike those in the NBA and MLB, are not guaranteed. If an NBA player signs a $20 million dollar contract, he receives $20 million regardless of circumstances. He could never take a shot in an NBA game and still make $20 million.

An NFL player can be cut at any time for any reason. When they are released from the team, they are fired with no severance pay. Guaranteed money is increasing overall in the NFL, but only for a few select stars.

Why Do the Players Deserve It?

In this trying economy, the National Football League generates billions of dollars from merchandise, TV contracts, advertising and ticket sales. Why should the owners keep it all when the players take the risk?

At the same time, individuals should be happy to play a game for a living and make a comfortable living in the process. The players have made the choice to play this dangerous game. They know the risks involved.

The unemployed factory worker in Detroit will not be shedding any tears for NFL player salaries. However, the same unemployed factory worker feels joy when watching football. To the unemployed fan, he knows the economy is in the drain. The bills are stacking high; but every Sunday from early September to the Super Bowl in early February, America’s most popular sport gives him an escape.

For three hours he doesn’t worry about finding a job when there aren’t many to be found. He can be a part of the fan camaraderie. And from past experience, he knows his favorite player can be injured during any play, ending a career, which he can relate to.

The copyright of the article NFL Player Salaries Fall Short of MLB, NBA in National Football League (NFL) is owned by Ken Kashubara. Permission to republish NFL Player Salaries Fall Short of MLB, NBA in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Apr 28, 2009 11:38 AM

Guest :

It should be noted that a NFL team has a roster of 53 players. 53 players that have to be paid. There's less money to go around. Yes the players could get a bigger piece of the "pie" but it wouldn't increase by that much as every player would need their piece. NFL should never have guaranteed contracts because like you said it is a collision sport plus it also keeps every player motivated to perform at their best level. This is something that cant be said about the NBA/MLB were players perform at their best in a "contract year".

Apr 28, 2009 12:53 PM

Ken Kashubara :

Word counts limit the amount of information I can provide in one article. Yes, the NFL has more players and less games. I believe the contracts should be guaranteed simply because of the physical risks involved in the game - broken necks, multiple muscle/ligament/tendon tears, etc.