Conclusion

Through the research I have done, my opinion that NFL players are not overpaid has actually been strengthened. In fact, because of my research I actually feel that most NFL players are actually underpaid. What?  Making millions of dollars is being underpaid? Yes, I believe they are being underpaid even though most are making millions of dollars a year.

I don’t believe that all NFL players are underpaid, however I feel that rookies and younger players are underpaid while some veterans and the best players are overpaid.  Through  research I learned that NFL players that have just been drafted get a three-year contract that they can’t negotiate, no matter how well they play, until after those three years are finished.  Unfortunately for most players, they don’t finish those three years and that is all they make for their entire NFL career.

Why do rookie contracts last for three years when a player is only a rookie for one year?  A player who makes a major contribution to the team in his rookie year will still make the same amount of money for the next three years no matter how well he plays, even if he makes Rookie of the Year!  And if he is injured before he can negotiate a new contract he may leave the NFL and never make the amount of money he deserves, or even close to how much he made for the team in sales for tickets, jerseys, and other items.  Rookie contracts should last for just their rookie year so players can earn the money they deserve while they can still play. Instead of team salary caps, that hurt some players while benefitting others, they should put a limit on how much a player can make in a year so they don’t make too much. That way they can spread the money out to younger players and everyone would be paid a fair amount instead of some being paid too much and some not enough.  

I would argue that NFL players are being underpaid because of their short career, high risk of long term injuries, and the lifetime of practice, effort, and sacrifice they put in to becoming an NFL player.

The long road to become a NFL player and how quick it goes

Let’s consider what it takes for an NFL player to make it to the pros.  Most athletes start playing sports from a young age and begin playing organized sports at around age 8.  This begins the weekly process of practices and games which will last for the rest of their career.  By the time they reach junior high, they are practicing every day after school for 2 or more hours, after which they go home, eat, and then have homework to finish.  This becomes even more time consuming in high school, where practices are longer and harder and there are often games or practices on the weekends, and even more homework.  There is also the pressure to perform, put in extra time in the weight room, and working out in the off season to stay in shape.  By the time these players make it to college they have already put in thousands of hours of practice time, suffered injuries, played through pain, and made sacrifices in other areas of their lives. Yet only about 3-4 percent of high school football players play in college, where practice and games begin almost before classes, and players are only allowed one day off per week, which means coaches can’t officially hold practice but that doesn’t mean you aren’t expected to be in the weight room or running, watching game film, etc.  The pressure to perform is even greater, for if you fail on the field or in the classroom, your college and football career could be immediately over.  The majority of college players will spend 4-5 years dedicating themselves to football yet most of them don’t make it into the pros. According to The Economics of Player Salaries There are about 25,300 college football players and only 224 NFL players are drafted every year. Of those 224 drafted some of them still never make a NFL roster as they are often cut in the preseason. The precious few players who make an NFL roster could see their career end at any time. A NFL player’s average career length is only about 3.5 years but players like Brett Favre and the few who end up playing 15 plus years make that number misleading.  If you consider that most students coming out of college are looking at a career that will last at least 40 years, even 15 seems like a relatively short amount of time for a career.   Most players spend their whole life to get to the NFL only to see their dream end before their 4-year rookie contract ends, during which time they are only making a minimum salary. An Athlete could spend his whole life on a career that last only four years and making about 375,000 to 500,000 a year (some rookies make more but most are in this range) it may seem like a lot but when their career ends at only 25 years old and they have to use that money for the rest of their life, it isn’t very much. This is why you hear many football players file for bankruptcy or go broke, years after they retire. Why don’t they make a rookie contract one year so the player can make millions of dollars while he can still play? Why don’t they let football players play in the NFL after one year of college like the NBA does, so they could spend more time in the NFL and make more money? Are NFL players underpaid because of their sort career, or are young players underpaid and veteran that make 20 million a year overpaid? Should they put a limit on how much a player can make a year so younger players could get paid more?

Only .08 percent of high school football players and 1.7 percent of college player make the NFL. Athlete who spend all their time trying to make the NFL and only 1.7 percent of them make it.

History of NFL players salary

Until recently NFL players didn’t make very much money and many of them had difficulty trying to support themselves, and found it impossible to try to support a family.  NFL players didn’t start making enough to support themselves until the 1970’s. In the 1950’s the average salary for a football player was less than 6,000 dollars a year, and in 1969 the average salary was only 25,000 dollars a year.  Most players had to work a second job, usually during the off season, but sometimes during the season just to make ends meet. By the mid 1980’s the average salary was up to 800,000 dollars a year and now in the year 2015 it’s up to almost 2 million dollars a year. Why are NFL players getting paid so much more now than they were and do they deserve the money they are making now? The main reason is the popularity of the sport has increased which means teams profits has also increased. According to the article written by Debra Bell called U.S News Questioned Football's Future Nearly 45 Years Ago , the average revenue of an NFL team in 1967 was about 3.8 million dollars (23.8 million adjusted), and in 2010 the average revenue for a team was 261 million. In addition to this half of the team’s income now comes from broadcasting contracts.

Although teams are making so much more money than before, what makes players think they deserve the money they are making? Most people think that they don’t deserve that much money for playing football. According to football insider Chris Smith players make a lot of money because they earn it, since people pay hundreds of dollars to go to games to watch the players play football. People also want to watch them on T.V so they bring in more money through broadcasting contracts. The league and owners make a lot of money because of the players. A player who makes millions of dollars brings in even more money from people buying their jersey to paying to watch them play.

This is a graph of each NFL teams revenue for the year and how much they spend on players.

Do professional football players make too much money?

My main research question is ‘’do professional football players make too much money? Many people are outraged because they feel that NFL players make so much money playing a game while teachers and our Military veterans are paid so little.  Professional football players get paid an average of about two million dollars per year. At first people might think, wow, that is a lot of money, of course they are paid way too much money for playing football. But when you look at the fact that they spend their whole life training, sacrificing, and practicing to become an NFL player and the average NFL career lasts about three years then it isn’t as much as it seems. The players are the ones that bring in all of the money, as people pay to see them play, buy their jerseys and other memorabilia and they bring in a lot of more money than any of the other three major sports.  Also, NFL players risk serious injuries that can affect them for the rest of their lives, such as post-concussion syndrome which we are only beginning to learn the long-term effects of. Of course many would argue that our Military face much greater risks so then why are they not paid as much as NFL players, but I think they are not overpaid.

 

Which body part gets hurt the most?

If you consider that professional athletes are basically entertainers, then this brings up many other questions such as how much are they getting paid compared to other entertainers and how much are they being paid compared to other professional athletes?  How long does an NFL player’s career last compared to athletes in other sports and entertainers?

I already know some answers to these questions but in order to answer them all and to answer them well I am going to have to do some research. Compared to other professional athletes not only are football players paid on average the lowest salaries, their careers are also the shortest.  Compared to entertainers they aren’t paid nearly as much as an actor/actress, or a musician, whose career can last for decades. Most NFL player’s careers are over before they have a chance to make as much money as some actors make in a year.

NFL salary by player age