The game of football is one of the most physically engaging as well as dangerous activities in the U.S., and arguably the entire world. Every week, players put their bodies on the line in an attempt to win games and receive the resulting glory and recognition. However, one of the most compelling aspects of the job—the paycheck—is also one of the most controversial.
Many believe that it is an injustice to pay individuals frankly exorbitant amounts of money to provide what is ultimately entertainment for the masses, while many others who more directly impact peoples’ lives—doctors, accountants, teachers, etc.—receive a fraction of that. While the justness of this reality is entirely subjective, it is questionable at best to claim that NFL players are overpaid for four reasons: skill, supply, size of the market and skewed perception.
NFL players are the best on the planet at what they do. There are millions of kids that are playing or have played peewee football at some point for any number of reasons: their dad or mom is the coach of the team, the parents think it would be cute to put on a Christmas card, or, occasionally, they’re actually good at it. A small portion of those children go on to play in middle school, fewer play in high school, and by the time college rolls around, almost none have made the cut. While the numbers of players drops drastically within this timeframe, the harshest of jumps is from college to the NFL. In 2014, only 1.6 percent of NCAA seniors playing football were drafted by an NFL team. Finally, once players get into the NFL, there is still no guarantee of fame and fortune. This whole progression is like saying only students who graduated in the top 1.6 percent of their class in medical school are able to get a job, after kids began practicing with a stethoscope when they were six with a coach for an hour every week. Predictably, the only ones standing would be the best of the best. This is one of the biggest reasons players get paid so much; they are at the top of their field. And in any capitalist society, those individuals get salaries to reflect that.
Another contributing factor is the relatively low supply of players. The less replaceable someone is, the higher their salary will be. Someone working as a dishwasher might earn, say, $7.75 an hour, while Aaron Rodgers, quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, has an average yearly salary of $22 million. This is because if a dish is broken or dirty, the restaurant can fire the dishwasher and replace him immediately from a pool that includes any number of teenagers or college kids looking for a job. However, a quarterback like Rodgers comes along about once every decade. There are teams that have waited decades for a Rodgers-type player and still have not found him. Thus, any team that finds itself lucky enough to have a player of that caliber will pay whatever it takes to keep him. There is a seemingly unlimited supply of potential dishwashers. There is almost no supply of potential Aaron Rodgers replacements.
Another cause of large salaries in the NFL is the comparatively huge size of the market. Home maintenance and repair is a multi-billion dollar industry. However, that wealth is spread out over tens of thousands of home repair people working for thousands of different businesses. At the same time, there is only one provider of professional football in America—the NFL—that receives all the wealth, and there are only a couple thousand players in the league. Being an NFL player would be comparable to being a home repairperson if there was one company that provided those services and it employed a couple thousand people to be the beneficiaries of its wealth.
Finally, while it is popular to assume that the average NFL player is a multi-millionaire, that is simply not true. The reason that this view is perpetuated is that the players who make that much money are generally the only ones we hear about. In reality, the average salary for an NFL player is $1.9 million; not chump change, but certainly not as much as is commonly claimed. In fact, the minimum salary set by the NFL for players is $420,000—approximately the same amount of money made by a surgical specialist.
When all these reasons are considered, it is clear that NFL players are paid an appropriate amount. The combination of their skill, the low supply of competent players and the nature of the market they play in all attest to that fact. The amount of work put in to remain game-ready and in peak physical condition as well as risk to personal health are solid reasons as well. Whether one agrees or disagrees with these facts, the NFL only continues to grow, and it is evident that there will be no change in the foreseeable future.
Vincent Behe is a Saucon Valley resident and Eagles fan. He is an undergraduate student at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, where he is majoring in history.
