Several times in the past few years I have seen people on the internet complaining that players in the NFL make more money than the soldiers and sailors in our military. I’ve also seen the variant complaining that players in the NFL make more money than schoolteachers.
Now before I get into numbers, let me say that I support the military. Their job is very dangerous, and they sacrifice much so that we can live free. Also, the thought of spending seven hours a day alone with thirty children five days a week for nine months makes me shudder. God bless all those of you who do it.
On to the numbers. In the NFL there are 53 players per team. If we multiply that by all 32 teams times the league minimum salary of $405K, we get a total of $686,880,000. When we divide that by the total number of active duty personnel the United States currently fields (1.43 million), we get $480 per year for each soldier or sailor. I think they would pass.
Or, to look at this another way, we could pay each active duty soldier/sailor the same that the poorest football player gets: $405K, and that would total 579 Billion dollars. That’s 20% of our federal budget. And that’s just the league minimum. What if we paid these soldiers the league average salary of $1.9 million? That would amount to $2.7 trillion dollars, which is just short of our annual national income of 2.9 trillion. That doesn’t leave much money for anything else.
If we substitute teachers for soldiers, it gets even worse, because while there are 1.43 million soldiers, there are over seven million teachers in the United States. That would total thirteen trillion dollars, if we wanted to pay these teachers as much as the average football player makes. People, our country only takes 2.9 trillion from us citizens every year, so this is obviously untenable.
So why do football players get paid so much more than soldiers? Because we live in a free market society, and fans are willing to pay admission to the games, they buy licensed products, they watch the games on TV, and they CHOOSE to spend their money on football. Is there anything wrong with this? Absolutely not. Teachers and soldiers are paid by the government. The government only has one source of income: YOU. So the next time you feel it necessary to complain that soldiers or teachers (or anybody really) makes less money than NFL players, stop spending your time and energy on football and send that money to your nearest army or navy base. Ask the base to divide the total among the soldiers. Anything less is hypocritical.
You can either be part of the solution, or you can be part of the (perceived) problem. You make the call.
Words of Truth 
I totally agree.
I don’t like your name!!!
You’ll have to take that up with my parents, because they picked it, not me.
Exactly why there shouldn’t be such a thing as a free education or free defense.
Both are paid for by taxes. Neither are free.
If schools aren’t free then those who get a free education just wind up stupid because of you just said and plus they can’t learn because students they don’t make enough to put them in a certain school.
Sorry typos
I think they should, my dad is in the US Army and is a staff sergeant and has been stationed in germany, been to iraq two times, afghanistan 2 times and saudi arabia once, he is going to Afghanistan again cause of ISIS, ISIS is stupid and insecure people who don’t know what they are getting into.
They need to reverse salaries, Football switches with soldiers.
Did you even read my post?
While I understand what you’re saying, it’s not really possible. Thank you for your sacrifice and please thank your dad for his service. I have never been in the military, but several members of my family have (including my dad and all my uncles). I wish there was enough money to pay soldiers millions of dollars, but there’s not enough money in the world to pay soldiers what they are worth.
I will be praying for your Dad’s safety, Jaydon, along with the rest of our brave men and women.
then why don’t we stop paying NFL players so much money give them like 100k a year our soldiers are whats making us a free country if we had no soldiers we all be under chaos and isis would be taking us over. how about every us citizen pays the government to pay our soldiers if there just paying for nfl games and products why not give to our soldiers.
rley,
Thanks for your comment. So you’re suggesting we lower the per-player salary to 100K? So if we did that, and then used the money left over (take 100K times 53 players times 32 teams and then subtract that from the total salary cap budget for all 32 teams) this would get us about 4.4 billion dollars, which, when split up among the 1.43 million military service members, would get each of them an extra $3076. Not exactly the salary boost you were looking for, was it?
As far as your other suggestion (“how about every US citizen pays the government to pay our soldiers…”), where exactly do you think the money comes from that the govt pays soldiers right now? That’s right: us. We pay taxes, and the government uses those taxes to pay soldiers (among other things). So you’re suggesting we increase defense spending? Write to your congressperson. I’m all for it.
when you reply to this comment you say that it only applies to football players , but if we gave less money to all sectors that earn much more than they deserve , that amount would rise greatly . I am not a partisan for the military expense and as an european i can tell you one thing i hate this sod , we need socialism, but as long as there are borders and that the whole world isnt one big country we wont be able to tax rich people , because those rich people can always flee to another tax haven : look france 75 % tax on the rich ; ******* french citizen leave france 😞 , thus i hate our world…
What sectors “earn much more than they deserve”? And what this comes down to is that the American people are willing to give their money to the NFL, which pays their players. It’s how capitalism works. All it would take for NFL players to make less money would be for the public to stop buying tickets, stop buying the merchandise, the jerseys, etc. And stop paying for the games to be broadcast. I guarantee the NFL would very quickly not be able to play the players millions of dollars.
As far as your taxing rich people, I think you don’t understand how economics works. Rich people want to keep their money and make more money, so they create businesses to make more money. These businesses have to hire people, who get paid by the rich people to do things. They then are able to support their families. In the society you envision, the government takes all the money belonging to the rich people, and makes everybody poor (or at least equal, which is the same thing). They tried this in Russia, in Cuba, other places. It’s called Communism and it doesn’t work. Now the one place communism works is China, because they started infusing their communism with some capitalism. Turns out communism works if it’s really capitalism in disguise.
It’s a boost none the less, it’s a start
The point is that football players make what they do because there are millions of people who choose to spend their money buying NFL things and going to NFL games. That’s where the money comes from. You want an example? Look at the NBA vs the WNBA. People want to watch the NBA, and so they pay big bucks on tickets, etc. So the teams can pass that on to the players. But the WNBA? I don’t know anybody that watches it. They have far fewer fans, and so their players get paid way less.
The solution to paying soldiers more and football players less is to convince people to choose to spend their money on soldiers instead of football. It’s a free market.
I think that there should be a program or something for our military soldiers that is conjoined with the nfl so that when the people pay for the nfl stuff the arer helping the military finances. i am a huge nfl fan but my dad served in the army also and what it did to him is unspeakable and prbably happens to many othersPart of the reason that football players get such a high salary is because of the risk factor of them getting hurt. If that’s the case why don’t our soldiers get paid triple what NFL players make? i hope that you agree.
Did you read my post? You’re seriously suggesting soldiers get paid triple what NFL players make? That would mean the 1,430,000 active duty servicemen/women would each receive $1,215,000 per year. That means our military budget for salaries alone (not including weapons, bombs, ammunition, ships, tanks, planes, etc.) would be a whopping $1,737,450,000,000. That’s 1.7 TRILLION dollars.
Our current spending for defense is only $596,000,000 (Billion). You’re proposing that we TRIPLE defense spending, and that’s not including equipment.
And the league minimum mentioned in my post for NFL players was for 2013. That figure goes up $15K every year. In 2015 that figure is actually $435,000, but I’ve used the 2013 figure in the post to stay consistent.
I don’t think its an agree or disagree topic. I think it just happens..people above don’t understand that it isn’t the government paying them its the league, the people who tune in to watch sunday football or the people who buy season tickets. My father was in the air force, we weren’t rich in anyway, People go into the armed forces for two reasons 1. to protect our loving land. 2. to have a better life when they come out. That’s what I think it’s all about. They pay for schooling and education, and having that on your resume looks so much better. My father now gets paid more than enough and has a great job because of the experience he had in the air force. It’s all about patience. Money is NOT everything.
Or they could just pet the soldiers more and not pay the football players not as much
How much should they give each soldier? Did you read the post?
Here, let me elaborate. The salary cap for each of the 32 NFL teams is $155,270,000. They spend the whole thing. That means that if you add up the salaries of every single NFL player, it comes to almost 5 trillion dollars. If you divided that by the 1.4million active duty military members, if the NFL players played for nothing, and gave their entire salary to the military, each soldier/sailor would get an annual raise of $3500. That’s a raise of about $67 per week. Not exactly life changing.
But also you missed the point entirely, which was that the reason that these players make any money at all is that Americans are buying merchandise, tickets, and television programming. Americans are giving their money freely to the NFL instead of to the military. So all you have to do is convince those around you to stop giving their money to the NFL and start sending it to soldiers.
I’m appalled, that football players and baseball,basketball, any sports players make so much money, my question to all of you mostley the origination of sports are ok withvthis, for onething due they save lives, due they give the right message of life? You all should be ashamed
Did you even read the article?
I totally agree with a lot of people on here but if you think about it your ideas are just on this screen, so I would suggest some of you make your letters become a reality because the worst part is that it’s the government that controls it not us and plus the thing is if you care so much then why haven’t any of you done something about it other than complain about it on whatever device you’re on
Exactly…..i think they should tax million dollar athletes a whole lot more than your average citizen and maybe schoolteachers should be given a tax cut and soldiers shouldnt have to pay taxes at all…….
I would agree with active duty military being exempt from taxes, but I don’t agree that athletes should have to pay MORE. They already pay about half their salary in taxes. How much more do you want to gouge them, considering they are putting their careers on the line almost every game??
Before you ask, yes I did read the article, I get it. The NFL pays the football players NOT the government. In a PERFECT world, the NFL would donate some of that money to the government, specifically for US soldiers, (making sure it was acceptable by players of course) that being said this is not a Perfect world and never will be, it is what it is, and it sucks!
Well, the NFL plays the players out of the money that they get from the public. If the public didn’t spend any money on it, their salaries would drop drastically. See: WNBA vs NBA. The NBA players make about 100 times what the WNBA players make, and it’s not because of the gender difference. It’s because the WNBA’s average attendance is about 7300 and the NBA’s is about 20,000 per game. The WNBA average ticket price is about $50 while the average ticket for the NBA is about $150.
So if these people really want the NFL players to make less money (I don’t think they should), they should spend less of their money on the NFL. And if they think teachers should make more money, they should just give some of their money to a teacher.
this is so stupid. you dont say anything good. you put all the blame on us and make the government seem poor. Look stupid: the USA is in debt 13 trillion dollars so i think we should all start paying attention to the people who can get killed and see people get killed, and even KILL instead of some idiots who run with a ball down a field. You are all idiots. This concludes my rant. Get lives.
Nathaniel, I don’t say anything good? I’m simply pointing out the inherent fallacy in the statement that we should pay soldiers the same that we pay football players. There’s 1,696 NFL players and 1,430,000 soldiers and sailors. There are 843 times more people in the military than there are NFL players. So every dollar you take from a football player to give to soldiers would have to be broken into 843 parts. The total salary cap paid to the entire 1,696 players is almost 5.4 billion dollars. If we just took all that money away from the NFL so those guys got paid nothing at all, and divided it among the 1.4 million military members, they would each get paid $3700 more per year. That’s a raise of $71 per week.
And my point was simple: The only reason the NFL players get paid that much is because WE are choosing to give them our money. Don’t like that soldiers get paid less than athletes? Start giving your money to soldiers.
could you be just a little nicer man? hes trying to show you the big picture and youre acting like a seven year old
oh yeah… we should probably pay them minimum nfl salary and pay the nfl their salary or are you all to stupid to realize that????????????????????? :<
Nathaniel, again, if we paid the 1.43 MILLION soldiers/sailors the NFL league minimum salary, that would cost the taxpayer $580 BILLION dollars per year. That’s 1/6th of our national budget. It would never work.
And we live in a capitalist system, so the only reason NFL players get paid as much as they do is that people are willing to pay their own money to the NFL. Are you saying that the NFL shouldn’t be allowed to pay their players with the money they get from selling tickets and jerseys and bath towels?
stop paying footballer millions for kicking a ball my 3 year old cousin can do that. not many people can serve on the front line its pathetic
People say nothing is free everything is free just eradicate the value of money were already in debt and money has no real meaning anyways shy of the meaning we decide to give it require everyone works at least 25hrs a week everyone gets a free house free car free schooling boom economy grows with people working less hours more opportunities to reduce homelessness and unemployment after all land was here before any human ever existed so why do we pay rent and taxes people might say oh it’s because of police and firefighters and military well if you make a law stating everyone must work at least 25hrs and idk at least 4 yrs in army or military to get free schooling and free house and free car boom just eradicated money . And you dont have to get paid for working you have a house and car what more do you need . Your only requirement work 25hrs a week to keep getting free food and shelter and everything else and those who refuse to work section off a state let them build there own colony from scratch unless they decide to join to work I dont think working 25hrs a week and 4yr in military is asking a lot from anyone when ur guaranteed a house and car for the rest of your life same with free travel just make all jobs mandatory 25hr work week helps over population to because say there’s only 1 job the hours of 190hours I work 25hrs then u employ almost 6 other pple so boom everyone is working . Promblem is solved just like that but no one wants to get rid of paper money .
Money has value because it represents something. My employer gives me money in exchange for my time and labor. I then take that money to the store and give it to them in exchange for the items that they have bought from others who created them with their time and labor. I buy a hamburger, and use my “stored labor” (i.e. “money”) to pay the cook for his labor and materials and skill as he makes my burger.
It is true that nothing is free. If you want a “free car” then who pays the guy that built it? The guy that mined the minerals used? The guy that harvested the rubber from the rubber tree? Smelted the steel? Tanned the leather? Coded the electronics? Drilled for the oil? Etc etc. You aren’t paying for the car, you’re paying for the labor that countless people have put into the car.
Take an economics class. Or even easier, listen to the iconic Milton Friedman talk about a pencil.
I honestly don’t think Military personnel SHOULD be paid even minimum wage NFL salary. i just think that they should make more than a pathetic 5,000 a month compared to an NFL monthly pay of 450,000 dollars minimum. Military goes through a lot more than a football player who is living the high life the second he is picked to play
You have no idea what you’re talking about. The minimum NFL salary for 2018 was $480,000. Your use of the word “monthly” makes me think you believe they get paid a lot more than they do, because that figure is their ANNUAL salary. Let me break that down for you:
Linebacker Bob gets paid the minimum of $480K. Since he makes that much, the federal government takes 35% in taxes right off the top. That leaves him with $312K. Now he has to pay state taxes. After all state, local, and FICA taxes are removed, he’s down to $296K. That’s pretty good, right?
Agents get a cut of between 4-10%, so let’s say 7% for the average. 7% of 480K is $34K
(rounded). So now we’re down to $262K. Then there’s the fact that they have to pay taxes in EVERY STATE they play. So for a Colts player last year, they had to pay taxes in Indiana, Texas, Missouri, Ohio, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, California, Florida, and Tennessee.
I’m not going to sit here and figure out how much income they lose from all those taxes, so let’s just say it’s about $20K. Now we’re down to $242K. They have to hire an accountant to handle all those taxes, which will probably cost them another couple thousand dollars, so let’s say $240K.
So they make $240K for three years (on average), and that’s 720K. And their bodies are wrecked, many times their minds are wrecked, and now they have to find a new career.
And we’re not even talking about the costs of this “high life” you talk about. People expect NFL players to live in expensive houses and drive expensive cars and give money away to all the “little people” back home. Add in a little bit of financial foolishness, and it’s no wonder these players are dead broke after retiring.
also i feel that the military isnt getting money because of HUMAN GREED. take the NFL for example. their organization made 14.2 billion last year after they payed everyone in the organization. and where is that money going? nowhere. absolutely nowhere. so maybe the NfL could let go of their money, or i don’t know maybe even 1 BILLION of it which would be no big loss to them, and give it to the military. they put on the national anthem every time before game day, but its one minute of their time. maybe they could actually think about others that are suffering and lend a hand
The organization made 14.2 billion in REVENUE. That does not include “paying everyone”. The salaries of the players alone (salary cap times 32 teams) is just about six billion dollars. And that doesn’t count all the other salaries of the coaches, trainers, doctors, lawyers, administrators, etc etc etc plus all the overhead expenses of the buildings, the manufacturing costs of the goods they sold, etc.
And you’re talking about the NFL making a $1,000,000,000 donation to the military for the soldiers? That would pay out exactly $700 per soldier. That’s a $58 raise per month. I’m sure they would be lining up to thank you for the idea.
Do your athlete math for our soldiers. Start them out at $405k. You justified your means. You didn’t not answer the question correctly.
1,430,000 active duty soldiers and sailors multiplied by $405,000 equals a total salary cost of $579,150,000,000. That’s 580 Billion dollars. The government collects 3.5 trillion dollars in federal taxes every year. The government currently pays $150 billion for this, so in order to increase it to your level, we would need to increase taxes for all 143 million taxpayers by about $3,000 per year. Do you have an extra $250 per month per taxpayer in your house to give to the military?