Professional athletes are some of the most gifted individuals on the entire planet. Their competition gives us normal fans a source of entertainment that so many of us love. Athletes including NFL players bring in millions of dollars of revenue to their respected sponsors and organizations. And it should be pretty inevitable that these athletes should make a pretty big salary. But it seems as if some of these NFL athletes are getting paid too little based upon their contribution and value to their sport. And I am here to discuss the reasoning to why I believe NFL athletes are severely underpaid

At first glance, you may think this statement sounds ridiculous but there is reasoning behind it. The main problem with NFL athletes not making enough money comes from the idea that other sports players like the MLB and NBA make more money than NFL players despite the NFL bringing in more profit. The NFL brings in the most profit out of any professional sports league and is worth 13 billion. The closest one to them would be the MLB at 10 billion. The NFL gains most of its revenue from tv program broadcasts such as Fox and CBS being that football is the most-watched televised sport in the country. And you would assume if the corporation is worth more then the players would make the most money right? wrong. NFL rosters contain a lot more players than sports such as hockey and basketball. So to distribute their money evenly, it would be inevitable that less money is being distributed amongst all the players evenly as opposed to the other sports leagues.

The league distributed $9.5 billion to its 32 teams this past season, having each team have about $296 million allowed in distributing amongst players. Unfortunately, some players have limitations to their paycheck based on multiple factors. Being younger and having less value on the team typically means you will have a fraction of someone else’s salary who is more significant towards the team’s success. Organizations prioritize their stars being that they ultimately bring in revenue to the organization, so they are willing to spend a lot of their cap space given in order to pay what the stars deserve. This, unfortunately, leaves some players with contract restrictions and holdouts being that they arent getting what they believe they deserve. So although some players get good pay, a majority of players in an organization have to settle for a lot less than they deserve being that the stars typically take a majority of the leagues given money.

The NFL implements a new collective bargaining agreement between the owners and the players every 10 years that gives 53% of each team’s revenue and giving the players only 47%. This to me is very outrageous being that the players definitely deserve more than half of the revenue based on their contributions towards the entire organization. And the worst part is that 97% of the teams are privately owned meaning that they don’t have to show public records of their distribution and spending of money and cap space. This means these owners can essentially get away with paying players less than they deserve and pocketing it themselves. Fans pay money to support their players by buying merchandise and coming to games, which makes it very unreasonable that the owner should be taking over half the revenue.

Make sure to leave any comments you may have regarding this very controversial topic. I can’t wait to hear what you guys have to say, being that this topic typically goes both ways. Your comments can start some friendly debates that I really look for with my viewers. I leave you all with a few questions: Are NFL players overpaid or Underpaid? Should the owner of an NFL team make more than all the players combined? Should the money be evenly distributed amongst every player?

Be sure to leave any questions or concerns you may have regarding this topic. I could see why this topic would leave a lot of you guys curious, so don’t be afraid to hesitate and ask. Make sure to like and subscribe to the blog if you haven’t already and tune in tomorrow as I talk about the impact coaches have on NFL players. Have a safe and great night guys!