As an avid NFL fan, I can’t help but think about the league minimum salary for players. Just the idea of it makes my head spin! The fact that many star players make millions while the underdogs just get by due to the league minimum salary is hard to swallow. I’m sure we can all agree that this isn’t fair. But I don’t want to get stuck in my feelings about it. It’s worth taking a look at what exactly the league minimum is and what it means for NFL players.
The National Football League’s (NFL) minimum salary set by the most recent Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) was $675,000 for the 2021 season. That numbe is up from the $610,000 base salary set for the 2020 season. This figure increases as you move through the years, so it’s worth keeping an eye on. But that number is only the league minimum, not the minimum a player can earn. Some players will make more or less than that, depending on their position and whether they were on a roster for a certain amount of time.
NFL players, like all of us, are human beings with bills to pay and responsibilities to their families. That said, the League minimum salary sounds like a lot of money, but with certain expenses of being an NFL player, it works out much less than most people think. For example, although players get to enjoy some pretty nice perks, they are also responsible for contributing 15% of their salary to the NFL Players Association retirement fund and also for paying significant federal income taxes. Then there’s also their legal fees, agent fees and insurance costs to consider.
The fact is that the minimum wage for players in the NFL is not enough for anyone to retire on, and it certainly doesn’t come close to covering all of a player’s expenses. That’s why many NFL players feel the need to take on second jobs. It’s impossible to ignore the profound effect that this has on these players. While some players decide to work with sport related companies, others take jobs completely different to football. I’ve seen former NFL players work standard nine-to-five jobs just to make ends meet. It’s hard to watch a player who has achieved the ultimate success on the field to go through this perceived financial turmoil.
And that’s before we even talk about the players who never make it to the big leagues. These are the guys who are forced to take on odd jobs in their hometowns. Some of them might try to hustle and make it to the NFL, but in the midst of all that hustle, they also need to focus on making ends meet. This can be a real challenge since most of them are still in college or just trying to get their feet off the ground. Many of them end up stuck in this in-between state of not making it to the pros but still needing to make money to get by.
To summarize, the NFL minimum salary might sound like a lot of money, but when it comes to the reality of it, it’s just not enough. NFL players and aspiring athletes have to work an incredible amount of hours to sustain themselves. A person playing in the NFL deserves to make a livable wage and I hope in the future, they will be able to.
A possible solution to the league minimum might be to increase the percentage of money players get from ticket sales. Players could also be asked to make a larger contribution to the NFL Players Association retirement fund or to have additional taxes waived in order to help them make a livable wage. It’s a difficult problem to solve in the current sports landscape, but with a little bit of creativity, we can come up with solutions that work for both parties.
Another solution could be to have more incentives for players. NFL teams could also set up programs that offer additional benefits to players, such as loan forgiveness or health insurance subsidies. This could be a great way to provide NFL players with additional financial security and help close the gap between what they earn and what their expenses are. Perhaps most importantly, these incentives could also be used to reward players far beyond the league minimum salary.
Additionally, I believe that more stringent albums could be put in place to restrict the amount of money NFL teams can spend on player contracts. We know that some teams are willing to pay top-level players outrageous amounts of money, so these restrictions should help level the playing field for those players at the bottom of the list. They’re the ones that deserve to get a livable wage.
Without a doubt, it’s hard to make ends meet on the current league minimum salary and it’s an issue worth discussing. But this situation is even worse for those players that don’t make it to the big leagues. With this in mind, I believe it’s more important than ever to get creative and come up with solutions that benefit everyone involved.
Finally, I think it’s also worth understanding just how hard these players have it. There’s a lot that goes into being an NFL player; training, diet, travel and more. This all comes on top of having to make ends meet on the league minimum salary. Just thinking about it in these terms brings to the heart of the problem and is a reminder of why making changes to the league’s minimum wage is so important.