MLB: Juan Soto, New York Mets, 2025 Salary (left): $51 million; NBA: Luka Doncic, Los Angeles Lakers, 2025 Salary: $54 million (center); NFL: Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys, 2025 Salary: $60 million (right). Shutterstock.com (Background); Tomas Diniz Santos/Getty Images (Soto); Harry How/Getty Images (Doncic); Cooper Neill/Getty Images (Prescott)

Are Pro Athletes Overpaid?

February 16, 2026

Last year, baseball’s Juan Soto signed the largest contract ever for a pro athlete. He will earn a whopping $765 million playing for the New York Mets over 15 years. He’s far from alone. Top players in the three major American sports—baseball, football, and basketball—earn yearly salaries in the tens of millions of dollars.

Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Football League (NFL), and the National Basketball Association (NBA) reap billions of dollars every year from TV deals, merchandise, and ticket sales. Some people say the athletes earn what they’re worth in such a high-revenue industry. But others argue that players’ enormous paychecks are unfair in comparison to what most Americans make.

So are pro athletes overpaid? A researcher on sports and society and an author who writes about sports face off.

Watching pro sports is a deeply meaningful experience for millions of people around the world. But the athletes are grossly overpaid, and it’s the fans who’re paying the price.

Look at what pro athletes make compared to those who arguably make a larger contribution to society. In 2024, the average salary for a firefighter in the U.S. was $59,530, according to the Department of Labor. The average salary in pro baseball that year was $4.66 million, nearly 78 times as much. No matter how good they are at their jobs, there’s simply no way professional athletes should earn that much more than firefighters—or plumbers, nurses, and crossing guards.

Some say top athletes deserve their share of the huge profits the professional sports industry brings in. But as teams continue to pay these high salaries, the price of being a fan rises too. Star players drive up ticket prices and prompt multibillion-dollar deals among teams, broadcasters, and advertisers. That the athletes get some of this money doesn’t make it fair to the average fan who can’t afford to see a game—in person or at home.

Sports fans are paying the price for their heroes’ high salaries.

The days of watching sports on TV for free, for example, are largely gone. Fans now have to pay for premium stations or streaming services. The affordable bleacher seat and cheap hot dog at the ballpark are mostly things of the past too. Now it can cost hundreds of dollars for a family to go to a baseball game. Athlete salaries aren’t solely to blame, but they’re part of the problem.

As long as enough people are willing to spring for the price of admission, the current business model driving pro sports will continue, and salaries will rise. We can’t give up watching our favorite athletes, but how long before we’re all priced out?

—SIMON DARNELL
Director, Centre for Sport Policy Studies, University of Toronto

It’s easy to think pro athletes are overpaid when you compare the numbers. More than half the people in the U.S. make less than $62,000 a year, while some top athletes take home $60 to $70 million.

But take a closer look at the economics of pro sports and you’ll see that these athletes are not overpaid. Rather, they’re extremely valuable employees of very successful businesses. The NFL, MLB, and NBA each generate billions of dollars in revenue every year because people want to see these athletes display their unique talents, whether that means buying a ticket to a stadium or subscribing to a streaming service to catch the games on television. The athletes’ salaries are simply their share of all the cash their hugely successful franchises bring in.

Plus, making it to the pros takes years of hard work. And the few athletes who get that far have relatively short careers—just 5 to 10 years to earn a living, compared with 40 or 50 years for many other jobs.

Athletes are employees of highly successful businesses.

Besides, most professional athletes aren’t getting top salaries. The lowest-paid players in the WNBA, for example, make under $67,000 a year. In minor league baseball, salaries range from around $20,000 to $36,000 a season, and Premier Lacrosse League salaries are similar. These leagues have highly skilled athletes too, but they don’t generate the ticket and merchandise sales or broadcasting deals that would earn their players top money.

And who’d get the money if the athletes made less? Lower salaries wouldn’t necessarily lead to lower ticket prices and cheaper hot dogs for fans who go to the games. It would likely be the team owners who’d pocket the difference.

The bottom line is that professional athletes are paid what they’re worth. And some of those athletes are worth a lot.

—FRED BOWEN
Author of The Golden Glove and Off the Bench

Who Earns what?

Median annual incomes for various jobs in 2024

Physician $239,200

Lawyer $151,160

Veterinarian $125,510

Accountant $81,680

Police officer $77,270

Postal worker $57,870

Childcare worker $32,050