Breaking News: Professional athletes make bank.
Top athletes in the NHL, NBA, MLB and the NFL make a tremendous amount of money to perform their duties, but there is quite a bit of growing gap between the salaries from league to league. As league revenues and team payrolls continue to soar into the stratosphere, superstar athletes continue to see zeros get added to the end of their paycheque. Pitchers and sluggers in the MLB have been receiving $100-200 million-plus contracts for over a decade, but in the other three major North American sports leagues contracts of that size are just now becoming commonplace.
Earlier this week Connor McDavid joined the NHL's $100 million man club, joining the likes of Alexander Ovechkin and Shea Weber, while also becoming one of the league's highest annual payed players in the process. Since McDavid's $12.5 million salary doesn't officially kick in until the 2018-19 season, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane still currently boast the highest annual salaries in the league at $10.5 million. Is that a lot of money? Oh yes. Does that fall well short of the top annual salaries in the NBA, NFL and MLB? Definitely.
It's quite a sizeable gap when you directly compare the numbers, with Derek Carr earning more than double what Toews and Kane make, and Steph Curry making a full $30 million more a season. Crazy money.
The figures, while high, are not surprising as leagues continue to be flush with cash from television deals, sponsorship and merchandising deals. It's the golden age of player contracts. As for whether or not NHL contracts will catch up to the other three leagues, we'll have to wait and see, but in the meantime, Toews and Kane will just have to find a way to somehow enjoy their 'smaller' $10.5 million salaries.
