Who Makes More Money: NFL or NBA?
Contents
We take a look at the numbers to see who makes more money: NFL players or NBA players.
NFL
Football is America’s most popular sport. The National Football League (NFL) is the highest level of professional football in the United States, and the Super Bowl is the biggest annual sporting event in the world. Football is a physically demanding sport that requires a great deal of training and dedication. The average NFL career lasts less than four years, and the average player’s salary is less than $2 million per year.
Revenue
The NFL is the clear leader when it comes to revenue, generating $13 billion in 2015 compared to the NBA’s $5 billion. That’s more than double! A big reason for the NFL’s superior numbers is its television deal. In 2014, the league signed a nine-year, $27 billion contract with CBS, NBC, FOX and ESPN that runs through 2022. That’s an average of about $3 billion per year, or nearly 60% of the league’s total revenue! The NBA doesn’t have anything close to that kind of TV money; its most recent TV deal is worth $24 billion over nine years, or about $2.7 billion per year.
Salaries
In the NFL, the average player salary is $2.7 million. The median salary is $860,000. However, there is a wide range of salaries within the NFL, with some players making well over $20 million per year and some players earning the league minimum of $495,000.
In the NBA, the average player salary is $7.8 million. The median salary is $5.15 million. Like the NFL, there is a wide range of salaries within the NBA, with some players making well over $30 million per year and some players earning the league minimum of $1.4 million.
NBA
Although the NFL has been generating more revenue in recent years, the NBA has been closing the gap. In fact, the NBA generated more revenue than the NFL for the first time ever in the 2016-2017 season. The NBA has been growing in popularity, which has led to more TV contracts and more revenue from other sources.
Revenue
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a men’s professional basketball league in North America, composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). It is one of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada, and is widely considered to be the premier men’s professional basketball league in the world.
In terms of revenue, the NBA is second only to the National Football League (NFL). In the 2015–16 season, NBA regular season games generated $7.4 billion in revenue, while NFL regular season games generated $13.2 billion. However, when considering playoffs and Super Bowls, the NFL generates significantly more revenue than the NBA. In the 2015–16 season, NFL playoff games generated $1.9 billion in revenue, while NBA playoff games generated $960 million. The 2016 Super Bowl generated $ 680 million in revenue, while the 2016 NBA Finals generated $376 million.
Salaries
In the National Basketball Association, players are paid a salary based on the number of years they have played in the league. rookies make a minimum of $582,180, while the maximum salary is $22.12 million for players with 10 or more years of experience. In comparison, the National Football League has a minimum salary of $435,000 and a maximum salary of $17 million.
The average salary for an NBA player is $4.9 million, while the average salary for an NFL player is $2.1 million. However, these figures can be misleading because they do not take into account the different ways in which NFL and NBA players are paid. For example, NFL players receive signing bonuses and salaries that are not guaranteed, while NBA players’ salaries are guaranteed even if they are released from their team. In addition, NBA players receive annual cost-of-living increases that are not given to NFL players.
So while an NBA player may have a lower average salary than an NFL player, he or she is more likely to earn every penny of that contract. In contrast, an NFL player’s earnings are more dependent on factors such as performance and playing time.
Comparison
Although the NFL has been generating more revenue than the NBA since 2010, the average player salary in the NBA was slightly higher than the average player salary in the NFL in 2019. In 2019, the average NFL player salary was $2.1 million, while the average NBA player salary was $7.4 million.
Which league generates more revenue?
When it comes to revenue, the NFL is light years ahead of the NBA. In 2017, the NFL generated $14 billion in revenue while the NBA generated $7.4 billion. The NFL’s revenue grew 9 percent from 2016 while the NBA’s grew only 4 percent. The NFL also has a much higher TV ratings than the NBA. In the 2016-17 season, the average NFL game was watched by 16.5 million people while the average NBA game was watched by only 1.9 million people.
Which league pays its players more?
There are two major professional sports leagues in the United States: the National Football League (NFL) and the National Basketball Association (NBA). Both leagues have a salary cap that limits how much each team can spend on player salaries. In general, the NFL has a higher salary cap than the NBA. As a result, NFL players tend to make more money than NBA players.
According to Business Insider, the average NFL player made $2.7 million in 2018. The average NBA player made $7.4 million in 2018. Thus, NBA players made an average of $4.7 million more than NFL players in 2018.
One reason why NBA players make more money than NFL players is that the NBA has a larger television audience than the NFL. According to Nielsen, the NBA had an average television audience of 1.2 million in 2017-2018, while the NFL had an average television audience of 1 million in 2017-2018. Thus, the NBA had 20% more viewers than the NFL. This difference in television audience size is likely due to the fact that basketball is played during the winter months when there is less competition for viewers from other sports leagues such as Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League.
Conclusion
In short, the NFL makes more money than the NBA. Of course, this is not to say that the NBA doesn’t make a lot of money—they do. In fact, they are the second highest grossing professional sport in the United States. However, when it comes to overall revenue, the NFL rakes in more cash.
