The other night, I was watching one of my favorite football movies ever called The Replacements.
The movie is based off of a fictional pro-football league, where the current players are unhappy with their salaries, and decide to boycott the league, and a lockout begins for the final four games of the regular season.
In further detail, the teams have to scramble to put together makeshift football players, who are either has-beens, never was, or semi-pro players.
I found myself laughing at the beginning of the movie, when a couple of players were interviewed about the future lockout.
One guy said:
“Look, I know that five million a year sounds like a lot of money. But I gotta pay ten percent in child support, five percent to my lawyer, plus alimony, child support…”
Another says:
“You got any idea what insurance on a Ferrari costs, motherfu–“
Although complete satire, that’s what the common man thinks about pro athletes and how they treat their salaries.
We find ourselves wondering how in the world a man who signed a $30 million contract can possibly go broke, and we immediately point to spending money on unnecessary things like mansions (multiple, in some cases), sports cars, designer clothes, etc.
However, former NHL player Chris Pronger recently took to Twitter to discuss just how easy that money can disappear, explaining all of the behind-the-scenes parts of a contract us regular folks don’t see:
When you hear about X player making $30M over 5 years ($6M/yr) you think wow he made it. However that is not always the reality, in this thread I am going to break down how much they take home and where the rest of it goes.
— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
For this thread here is the example:
X player gets $30M paid over 5 years and earn on paper $6M a year. Here is who they pay:
Right off the bat escrow gets taken out of every check. On average about 10%. Most people have no idea about escrow. pic.twitter.com/uUcpyZaJUW
— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
This is money that the NHL withholds from players in case the 50% revenue share is not met. In most cases the player never sees this money again. So that’s 10%
$6M salary minus escrow (10% avg.)
– $5,400,000
— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
Next are federal taxes – 37%
We get bi-weekly checks (13) during the regular season. For each of those checks the gov’t gets 37% +-
• $2,000,000
— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
Now you have to pay the local tax. That could be 0% like in TX & FL or as high as 16% in NYC. For this example let’s use 8%. There is another 8%
• $432,000
— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
Next is agents. They vary but typically the average is 3%. BTW that is 3% of the gross not post tax. So there is another 3%
• $162,000
— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
So let’s total this up now. Player X is now netting $2,806,000. That is a lot of money! But now they have to spend a little more money to do their job effectively.
Housing. Typically players are not from the city they play in so they either rent or buy a house (rent $5k month)
— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
For health you typically have a chiropractor, masseuse and trainer that you are paying for in and out of season. ($20k/yr)
Vehicle. Need to get to and from practice and games. ($75k)
And finally nutrition. Nutritionist and food are $6-7k a month. ($60k/yr)
— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
Now this is all the expenses just to be doing their job at a high level and not living the high life. Which certainly happens but not on this thread. Just a reminder these are averages and not fact!
— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
So Player X is netting $2,591,000. Which is around 43% of the total number. Now keep in mind the average career is 4 years and the average salary is $2M. So yes this is still a nice amount of money but most people don’t realize how much comes off the top before they get to invest
— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
Also keep in mind I am not including when athletes seasons are over they typically go somewhere to relax and unwind. Nor am I including a number of other ancillary expenses that typically come up. For me it was the odd suspension :(
— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
