COMPENSATION: It’s time to get paid

First things first: show me the money. You want to get paid as much as you can as soon as possible.

The NHL is out. The league’s highest-paid players are Chicago Blackhawks teammates Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane at $13.8 million apiece, and only 11 players make $10 million or more per season.

What about the NFL, where an awful lot of money has been thrown around of late? The salary cap is rising rapidly at around $10 million per year. Just look at the recent contracts for Aaron Rodgers and Khalil Mack, the largest given to offensive and defensive players in NFL history.

Forbes reports that Rodgers be the highest-paid athlete come December. At $33.5 million per year, Rodgers will be set for a long, long time.

It is important to note that the guaranteed money in most NFL contracts is significantly lower than the total reported number, although many of the top-shelf quarterback deals carry a disproportionate amount of guaranteed salary compared to the non-superstar contracts.

If you go the NFL route, your mug will be on TV constantly, leading to countless endorsements. Even if an athlete in another sport trumps your salary, your endorsements could be in the $9 million (Rodgers) to $13 million (Drew Brees) range.

What about baseball, where there’s no salary cap to speak of? The sky’s the limit. However, keep in mind that the average professional baseball player will spend a few years making something like five figures before hitting the majors, so outside of a potential signing bonus, you might not be paid like a professional athlete until your mid-20s. Yikes.

Even the best prospects bounce between the majors and Triple-A early in their career and can be compensated at the major league minimum until using up all three minor league options. After three years on the rookie contract scale, a player is eligible for arbitration, where an arbitrator gives you a forced raise. It’s kind of wild when you stop and think about it, a system that essentially amounts to six or seven years of indentured servitude. That fully-guaranteed no-cap contract is a heck of a carrot, but are you willing to wait until your 20s to get it? There’s also the problem of endorsements. How many MLB stars would you even recognize? Baseball stars struggle to land legitimate endorsements, so that caps earning potential, too.

And then there’s the NBA. LeBron James is the highest-paid player in North American team sports. He’ll make more than $35 million this season in salary alone. Multi-year NBA deals are typically guaranteed too, so that’s good security. But the biggest boon for NBA superstars are the endorsement opportunities. Five of the 25 most highly-compensated athletes of all-time are current or former NBA players, including Michael Jordan at №1. While the salary cap places a ceiling on a max deal, that cap continues to grow. The NBA’s best are paid more per year than virtually all other superstars across North American team sports.

It looks like the NBA is the best way to get paid, and Forbes agrees. Forty of the 100 highest-paid athletes in 2017 were NBA players, more than twice the number in the NFL (18) or MLB (15). The NHL had exactly zero players on the list.

Advantage: NBA