6 Sports that Have the Highest Average Salary in the World

It looks like everything became centered around the money in these 6 sports that have the highest average salary in the world.

No matter what is your sport of choice, you will often hear older people complaining how the players aren’t playing for the team but for the money. They will say it was different in their time. Athletes didn’t earn as much, but they played better and with more passion. There is some truth in that. Sports have evolved from fun and entertaining activities to true money making machines. Did you know that NBA has signed a new 9-year TV deal with ESPN worth $24 billion?

TV rights are just one of the examples. You have sponsorships, TV commercials, product placements. The teams are even selling their stadium naming rights. If you have a few million extra, you can go and rename the stadium of your favorite team. Isn’t that insane? Of course, this cash flow doesn’t end here. The ticket prices for almost every popular sports event have skyrocketed. When your grandfather tells you that he paid his ticket 12$ for Super Bowl in the ’60s, he is not lying. Now the prices rose up to 100%.

All of this led to an enormous increase in player’s salaries. They are receiving tens of millions of dollars per season, and they always want more. Ten years ago, it was unthinkable that a soccer player has a salary of $10 million. Now all the best players have beyond that; there are even some club managers receiving that amounts. And soccer isn’t even that highly placed among the to justify that. But it is the most popular in the world, and that counts.

We didn’t want to include individual sports in our list, even though we know that tennis players, golfers and boxers are among the highest-paid athletes in the world, because their biggest bucks come from tournaments and endorsements, and they don’t have usual salaries. To find out about the sports that have the highest average salary in the world, we consulted Global Sport Salaries report for 2015, which had a recap of all major sports leagues in the world when it comes to finances. So, these numbers you’ll see below represent average pay per year in the certain league. Not all soccer or football players have the same salaries in all the leagues. But this list will enable you to find out how much, potentially, professional players of a certain sport can earn if they find their place in some big league.

Let us see where the money lies.

6. American Football

Average pay per year: $2,110,829 (NFL League) 

We will start with American Football and league with the highest average attendance in the world, NFL. The Miami Dolphins are the largest spenders in the league paying around $2,2 million to their players on average. Europeans may think this is too much, but they don’t understand this sport anyway.

5. Ice Hockey

Average pay per year: $2,614,928 (NHL League) 

Moving to the icy fields of NHL league. Canadians are the ones enjoying big salaries in this sport the most, since they do make almost a majority of all players. The highest paying club is New York Rangers, which pays around $3,3 million on average.

4. Soccer

Average pay per year: $3,822,003 (EPL League) 

“Soccer” in the USA and “football” in the rest of the world. When it comes to highest average salaries by a single club/team, soccer clubs claim 8 places among the top 10. Soccer’s highest individual earners are Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, who are among the highest-paid athletes in the world as well. But not all players are paid that well, so modest 4th place for soccer on this list of sports that have the highest average salary in the world.

3. Baseball

Average pay per year: $4,166,159 (MLB League) 

The numbers are getting higher and higher. You may want to sit down. We already told you that soccer clubs claim 8 places among the top 10 highest average salaries by a single club/team. Well, those two remaining places are reserved for baseball clubs, LA Dodgers and NY Yankees that pay 8 and $7,3 million respectively.

2. Cricket

Average pay per year: $4,330,799 (IPL League) 

Surprise, right? A huge one. We bet you didn’t know that cricket is so well paid sport. Well, at least, it is in India. Indian cricket clubs are paying huge amounts of money to their players, all of them. The difference between the highest and lowest spender is just below $500,000. We can’t imagine what would happen if cricket got more popular around the world.

1. Basketball

Average pay per year: $4,575,918 (NBA League)

This one, we believe, was expected. We conclude this list of 6 sports that have the highest average salary in the world with a sport that was almost always lucrative. Twenty years ago, Michael Jordan received $30 million for just one season. The highest salary in 2015 is being paid by Brooklyn Nets – $6,2 million on average. For example, Philadelphia 76ers pay around $2,2 million on average. That may be the reason why they can’t reach the playoffs.