Maceo24

May 22nd, 2015 at 1:00 PM ^

Those NBA contracts at the bottom of the list are brutal.  Kobe is semi-understandable, but Amar'e and Joe Johnson is absolutely ridculous.

JHendo

May 22nd, 2015 at 1:05 PM ^

I don't think MLB players on there is surprising at all, seeing as baseball uses just a luxury tax instead of a salary cap (NHL and NFL both have a salary cap, NBA has a combination of the two).

That said, you are absolutely right, many of those MLB players are has beens that are has beens that don't deserve a fraction of that salary now (I'm looking right at you, JV).

nerv

May 22nd, 2015 at 1:04 PM ^

Surprised there arent more European soccer players. Hell, Im surprised half of this list wasnt Real Madrid's roster. I figured Bale would be for sure.

Im actually quite shocked by the amount of drivers on here. I had no idea Formula 1 was that popular and lucrative.

aratman

May 22nd, 2015 at 2:19 PM ^

Would it be interesting if you had a job that has a artificially limited wage? If you couldn't change jobs to be compinsated better?  Think of athletes as entertainers with a limited amount of time to get paid.  The sports leagues have it figured out, they get the goverment to build stadiums, they get the fans to believe the athletes are greedy as they make billions on the only product, the players.  When you make as much as they are in revinue plus the value of your team is sky rocketing, see the Clippers, you are printing money.    

BornSinner

May 22nd, 2015 at 4:03 PM ^

Interesting? Yes. Skewed towards 2-3 clubs in every league? Also yes. 

Soccer transfer news drives me nuts b/c every year it's the same fucking teams poaching from smaller clubs. At least in American sports (except baseball for the most part) you got a restriction on that. Can't wait for FIFA's Fair Play rules to really kick in. 

Winners: MU, MC, Chelsea, sometimes Arsenal, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Barcelona (nowadays), PSG, AC and Inter Milan (before both went bankrupt), Bayern Munich and Juventus (kinda)

Losers: Dortmund (became Bayern's feeder club even though they kicked Bayern's ass 3 years straight, so what does Bayern do? Buy Dortmund's star players of course by activating contract kickers put in players' contracts prior to becoming stars) 

Arsenal (used to be MC's feeder club before they finally paid off their new stadium... but still get screwed b/c Wenger believes in fiscal responsibility (ironic...)) 

FC Porto (they won a CL just a decade ago, yet every year gets ransacked along with Benfica) 

Juventus (Italian teams are just lower on the ladder than EPL/Bundesliga teams even though they're the only Italian team with their own independent stadium) 

Marseille (Way more historically successful, but lacks funds like PSG) 

Atletico Madrid (If they had the funds as their in town rivals, they would've been a force still)

Lyon, Everton, Schalke, Gladbach, Roma, Lazio, Sporting FC, Ajax etc etc.. 

The larger clubs can all take on huge amounts of debt while smaller clubs, even if just as popular among fans, get royally screwed. Then you occassionally have the random Russian or Chinese team like Zenit, CSKA Moscow, Anzhi or Shanghai Tigers buying players with absurd amounts of money in clearly inferior leagues in China's case. 

 

Gulo Gulo Luscus

May 22nd, 2015 at 4:28 PM ^

Losers: Dortmund (became Bayern's feeder club even though they kicked Bayern's ass 3 years straight, so what does Bayern do? Buy Dortmund's star players of course by activating contract kickers put in players' contracts prior to becoming stars)

This is the worst. Those jerks already poached Lewandowski and Gotze. Reus may be next.

That's Just Kramer

May 22nd, 2015 at 5:22 PM ^

In the US, it is feasible to use a salary cap so that a city like Buffalo can afford to compete and at the same time doesn't detract from the big market teams potential. In Europe, it is not possible to cap the spending for Manchester United to the level of someone like Burnley, it would implode the league in an instant. The discrepancy in population size, talent pool and economic power a town like Burnley generates, in contrast to that of Manchester or London, isn't relatable in any way to that between Buffalo and Los Angeles.

BornSinner

May 22nd, 2015 at 5:34 PM ^

There are other ways of limiting the over abundance of spending. Limiting transfers depending on X amount of money spent etc... kinda similar to what they are implementing now keeps it somewhat level between smaller clubs in the market buying/selling new players as well as larger clubs. 

It also prevents the bubble from bursting. The Milan teams ran themselves into the ground due to reckless spending and Italy's tanking economy. I wouldn't be surprised if Man U and Man City followed suit at the rate they're going. 

AA2Denver

May 22nd, 2015 at 5:14 PM ^

You nailed it. I love euro futbol but the transfer drama is as annoying as anything in sports. Club and league competitions are won by the same teams every year. Occasionally a team rises up like Southampton or Wolfsburg and they are gutted. 

For all of MLS's issues it is very competitive and pretty much any team could make the playoffs. 

truferblue22

May 22nd, 2015 at 1:21 PM ^

Are you serious about the F1 comment? Dude, it's the top racing league in the world, adored everywhere except here. For some unknown reason people here prefer to watch 5 hours of oval racing as opposed to 2-2.5 hours of twisting turns, chicanes and remarkable acceleration. To be fair, the annual US Grand Prix F1 race in Austin, TX does very well though. 

late night BTB

May 22nd, 2015 at 2:27 PM ^

had a person try telling me formula 1 wasn't even the best open wheel racing league in the world haha

yes, the iowa corn 300 is much more prestigous than monaco or spa. haha

its ok, i like being an american that knows F1.  They'd have to change F1 too much to appeal to the mouthbreathing US mainstream, and that'd make it suck.  

Been to Monaco, Monza, and Valencia when i lived in europe.  Montreal would be a fun race to see next.

BlueinLansing

May 23rd, 2015 at 9:31 AM ^

highly technical, incredible talent to drive those things.

 

But the sport is the most boring form of auto racing around.  Watch any race, its frequently over in qualifying and you'll be lucky to see one pass for a lead during the actual race.  The broadcasts spend most of the time watching some battle for 5th thru 7th places because the race is so god damn boring up front.  Races are decided by if the car is reliable enough rather than actual driver skill.

 

You literally see more action in one Nascar race than you do in an entire season of F1.

 

 

Now your F1 advertisement, watch Monaco this weekend.  Incredible, iconic track.

PrimeChronic

May 22nd, 2015 at 1:34 PM ^

There's a couple reasons he has no permanent endorsements, although he had some fight only sponsors for the last fight.

The first is he set his minimum for any endorsement deal at 1 million. He won't even talk to you for less. Apparently Burger King paid him around that for the King to walk to the ring with him, but that has no enduring endorsement.

The second reason is back in 2009 he signed a deal with Reebok. I don't think the totals were released, because only a few weeks after signing it he walked into a Nike store and spent thousands, took pics and put it all over social media. Shortly after, he said he gave Reebok their money back and terminated the deal.

No one wants to touch this guy for an endorsement. I'm surprised he didn't pull out a Big Mac to eat while walking to the ring with the King.

Abe Froman

May 22nd, 2015 at 1:14 PM ^

Sad no MotoGP racers made the list.

 

They should have a special category / consolation prize for Charlie Weiss -- Most money for least amount of actual work.

truferblue22

May 22nd, 2015 at 1:23 PM ^

Yeah the amount of money spent on soccer players to buy them away from other clubs isn't counted, or else Bale, etc WOULD be the top in the world. Because you have to buy the player for millions upon millions AND THEN pay them millions upon millions. The transfer fees nowadays are out of hand.

His Dudeness

May 22nd, 2015 at 1:23 PM ^

You guys all understand the difference between guaranteed contracts and incentive based contracts, right?

NFL players dont get paid shit. Short careers and non-guaranteed contracts due to a semi-new and weak (relatively speaking) players union. Most every day Joe will make more in his/her career in a lifetime than an NFL player will make from their NFL career in a lifetime. #Science

MLB contracts are mostly guaranteed. They can play waaay longer than NFL guys. Very strong and powerful players union.

NBA guys get a great deal of their money from shoe and apparel companies, which is why you see a lot of them on the list.

It's laughable to see people on an older post talk about how Drew Henson shouldn't have signed with the Yankees. If you can play baseball or football, you play baseball every time.

OlafThe5Star

May 22nd, 2015 at 2:17 PM ^

Not even close to being right. $2M average salary for 3.3yrs = $6.6M

Median US salary is 52K, so you make the average NFL player's income in only 127 years. 

Even taking the minimum NFL player earnings for 3.3 years is a decent sum: $1.8M, or ballpark 35 years of working at the median income. 

Plenty of ways to make as much (or more) than NFL players, but being even an average NFL player is a pretty decent gig from an economic standpoint if, and this is an important "if," you don't include potential injury impact. On the flip side, NFL careers are helpful for many post-playing positions, including broadcast, coaching, and other affiliated roles. 

All that said, I'd rather have my job on Wall Street than an average NFL career...

 

Sources:

Avg NFL Salary:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2015/01/23/average-mlb-sala…

Length:

http://www.statista.com/statistics/240102/average-player-career-length-…

Median salary: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States

Minimum NFL salary:

https://www.spotrac.com/blog/nfl-minimum-salaries-for-2015-and-the-vete…

kb

May 22nd, 2015 at 4:03 PM ^

but they have all of their money early in life ( as opposed to regular Joe who accumulates it over 40 years), so if they are smart and invest it, they can turn that into a lot more money.

His Dudeness

May 22nd, 2015 at 3:27 PM ^

There is no way the average NFL PLAYER is making $3 mil / yr.

Not a chance.

Starter? Maybe, but no way an avg NFL player makes that.

The highest paid player in all of football makes $17 mil /yr per your sited article. There are hundreds of players on an NFL payroll including practice squad players. That $3 mil / yr number just doesn't make sense.

 

BigHouseBoyz

May 22nd, 2015 at 4:37 PM ^

According to Sportingintelligence.com and their recent Global Sports Salaries Survey 2015 

NFL  1684 players with a total salary of $3,554,636,009 avg of $2,110,829 and the median is $840,000

NBA is the other extreme with fewer players at 448, total salary of $2,050,011,110 or an avg of $4,575,918 and a median of $2,77,910

Larger pool in the NFL but over 3x the players to share it with.  If you play in the NBA you are a rare pro athlete!

http://www.globalsportssalaries.com/

There is a lot of kool sports salary data here.  For example Michigan is #5 in avg NFL pay with 22 guys and #22 in NBA with 6 guys.  NBA included countries and not just colleges.  Very few colleges are in the top 35 in NFL avg and top 22 in NBA.

funkywolve

May 22nd, 2015 at 2:23 PM ^

The league minimum is 375K.

Pulled from an article in the Houston chronicle that came up when I googled average NFL salary:

 

The average salary of an NFL player works out to considerably less when not considering the top earners, but these players still make hundreds of thousands of dollars each. Bloomberg Businessweek says the average salary of an NFL player in 2011 was $1.9 million. The median salary was $770,000. When factoring in a typical signing bonus, these numbers can go up well into the $2-3 million range.

harmon40

May 22nd, 2015 at 3:08 PM ^

No anger here toward Henson, but if he lives to be 102 he'll never make as big a mistake as he did by not returning to Michigan for his sr season and sticking with football.

Henson's Yankee deal: 6yr/$17mm.

D McNabb ('99): currently NFL's 19th highest earner all-time at $97.5mm

M Vick ('01) rookie deal: 6yr/$62mm ($15mm guaranteed). Career earnings:$100mm+

Granted, it's possible Henson (a likely '02 1st rounder) would have busted. 

However both '02 1st round QB's did bust. They also both got rich. 

#1 D Carr's rookie deal: 7yr/$48mm

#3 J Harrington rookie deal: $36.5mm, $13mm guaranteed

Also, there are currently 18 active NFL QB's that have at least $64mm in career earnings, and that list includes M Sanchez ($64mm), S Bradford ($65mm), J Cutler ($76mm), C Palmer ($127mm), and several other QBs who have not played in a Super Bowl. Source: www.spotrac.com/nfl/rankings/earnings

So Henson could have gotten a lot more money - much of it guaranteed - without having proven a thing in the NFL. Big $ in baseball comes if and only if you make The Show.

OTOH, given how things worked out for Carr and Harrington, maybe Henson is better off after all. He didn't have to set the NFL record for getting sacked as the Texans QB or endure the misery of the Millen era with the Lions...

harmon40

May 22nd, 2015 at 4:06 PM ^

especially if, deep down, Henson just liked baseball more than football (I have no idea on his reasoning).

However...for Joey $13mm was only the guaranteed $. Deal was $36.5mm for just being on the team and healthy. He ended up making $24mm in 4 seasons with the Lions, and $31mm in career earnings. And that's a guy that busted.

In sum, I just think Henson's odds were significantly better of getting 1st round QB $ than getting to The Show and sticking there. He was doing much better at CFB than he was in minors.