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.