Salaries of Average Professional Athletes

I've posted a lot on jobs and how much people earn in certain positions including:

• Top Jobs: Where the 6-Figure Jobs Are

• The Highest (Best) Paying Jobs

• The Worst Paying Jobs

• 10 Best-Paying Jobs for Associate Degrees

• 10 Jobs Hiring the Most 2006 Graduates

I've even written a post on the Best Paid Athletes (And How You Can Earn More).

But this one is a bit different from all the rest. It's from the July 31 issue of Sports Illustrated and highlights the salaries of "average" professional athletes -- people who are right in the middle of the earning scale for their sport, not the "big earners." Here are the numbers for various professional sports:

• Basketball (NBA) -- $5,000,000
• Baseball (MLB) -- $2,800,000
• Football (NFL) -- $1,750,000
• Hockey (NHL) -- $1,500,000
• Men's Golf -- $973,495
• Women's Tennis -- $345,000
• Men's Tennis -- $260,000
• Women's Golf -- $162,043

A few thoughts here:

1. Oh, if I could only be an average NBA player for a few seasons. ;-)

2. Yes, the careers of professional athletes are short. But if you manage your money properly, even 2-3 years in the higher-end sports can set you up for life.

3. I believe these numbers are for salaries only -- they do not include other forms of income. Granted, there probably isn't much endorsement money for athletes at this level, but there's surely some.

4. Golf isn't a bad profession when you consider the fact that you can play competitively for 20-30 years. Compare that to five years as a pro football player and the golfers (at least the men) come out pretty well.

5. I'm surprised that hockey players make so much -- especially considering the state of the sport.

6. Yes, women's tennis players make more than the men. The reason? Part of it has to do with the number of them -- the average woman tennis player is ranked #40 in the world while the average guy is ranked #90.

7. Why do men golfers make so much more than women golfers? One word: Tiger. He's raised the purses for everyone in men's golf.

For more thoughts on careers for us average, non-athlete people, see Best of Free Money Finance: Career Posts.

Comments

[David]

This mentions the average salary for professional atheletes. Since their salary structure is top heavy, with the superstars making far more than the "average" professional, the median salary would be much more informative than the average salary, but I bet the median salary wasn't mentioned in the article.

[Foobarista]

Is this "average" the median, mean, or mode? It matters enormously with pro athletes. I assure you the median PGA tour golfer isn't making $975K/year, but Tiger's gazillions would skew the arithmetic mean upward...

this just aint right they dont even do that much

[Nichole Christie]

I think this is highly entertaining. The information gives me so much to look at. If only I had more names, like Opera Winfree.

[Donny Kyre]

I love Nichole Christie! She is awesome in her own way and yeah. So i"m gonna go home and eat some cereal not (Fruit Loops) so yeah. Peace dogs

[Dont Bob]

This is a silly statistic - the top 150 golfers in the world are usually the same 150 that get to keep their tour card at the end of each year. I can garuntee that the 150 mark is below $750,000 so there is no way that the average player is making over $900,000. There are another few hundred or more guys out there trying to make it and unable to retain their tour card. These stats are an awfull assesment of a fabricated reality.