Salary of professional basketball players
Financially, professional basketball players make a pretty good living. Between $2,000 and $4,000,000 per month depending on the championship. Like most professions, everyone is not in the same boat. The best raise much more money than the others. This is logical even if there are special cases. The employers, namely the clubs, always achieve good and bad deals. That is to say that some players are underpaid compared to their performance and impact on the field. Conversely, others are less productive than expected in view of their salary.
As you can see, playing basketball at the professional level is quite profitable. However, a career as a pro basketball player is relatively short. It lasts ten seasons on average. Injury or other health issues can destroy an athlete’s career. Professional basketball players must save and invest if they no longer wish to work once their career is done. Everything depends on the expenses they have made and the financial emoluments they have accumulated over the years.
NBA and the Rest of the World
A study has ranked among them the highest paying championships worldwide. At the top of the list by far is the NBA. The North American basketball championship best remunerates its athletes. Over an entire season, the minimum salary for an NBA basketball player is equivalent to that of an excellent player in the Euroleague. The NBA attracts the best basketball players in the world. Superstars are paid several tens of millions of dollars every year. At the same time, they are all sponsored by one of the most famous sports equipment manufacturers: Nike, Adidas, Under Armor and Puma. For the same salary, a basketball player will therefore favor the NBA over any other championship.
Only certain clubs playing in the Euroleague and in Asia are able to compete with the lowest wages offered in the NBA. One thinks particularly of teams evolving in China. But also in Spain, Turkey and Russia. The national championship of the first division in each of these last three countries mentioned is one of the three most profitable competitions on the European continent. And this, with an estimated average salary of between $200,000 and $500,000 net per season. The best-paid basketball players can expect contracts of up to 4 million euros net of tax. Such is the case for Alexey Shved and Nikola Mirotic.
Salaries of basketball players in European countries
There are large disparities in the salaries in Greece. Annual earnings of Olympiakos and Panathinaikos best players can reach 1-2 million euros. While some salaries offered in less competitive teams are sometimes lower than in other major leagues on the Old Continent.
With locomotives such as Milan and Bologna, the Italian premier division is approaching the cream of the crop in Europe. Nevertheless, like its counterparts, the league has suffered the economic and health crisis.
Israel benefits from the presence in its ranks of a legendary and big club in Europe: Maccabi Tel-Aviv. By removing this organization from the calculations, the salaries paid in the Israeli league are more or less similar to those found in average leagues in Europe.
Germany is also situated in this group. Like the French Elite Championship, the BBL is financially stable. There are no delays in the payment of salaries. This is not really the case in all the clubs in Greece and Spain in particular.