You already know that your favorite athlete makes a little more than you do. All you have to do is see the latest news story on the most recent nine-figure contract signed by a star athlete.

                By                    George Malone

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The average hourly wage for the American worker in 2020 was just more than $25 in 2020, the Social Security Administration reported.

Taking the numbers for the top 15 salaries in the four major men’s pro sports, the gap is staggering. Among those athletes, they make an average of $2,826 per hour for a year, $370,132 per hour for the total broadcast time of a game, and a whopping $957,823 per hour of game time.

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(We’ll give you a minute to pick your jaw up off the floor.)

Those are average numbers, so it might help to look at some specific athletes:

  • Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott made $31,409,000 in 2020, for an average of $1,856,690 per hour of total broadcast game time. Prescott was injured and only played five games last season. For the top 14 NFL players, the average is $651,572.
  • Stephen Strasburg, the Washington Nationals ace, made $26,100,000 in 2020. His salary per hour of game time was $2,270,273, while the average for the top 14 baseball players was $476,890 (with an average of 67 games played).
  • In the NBA, Brooklyn Nets forward Kevin Durant has the highest hourly salary at $4,020 per hour for the year. The average for the top 14 NBA players was $3,785.
  • The highest-paid player in terms of salary-cap hit is Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors. He made $37,759,586 last season. Playing 63 games, he made $749,198 per hour of game time.
  • And the top player in the NHL, Dallas Stars center Tyler Seguin, made $2,242,188 per hour of game time. Of course, he only played three games last season, so his return was pretty good.
  • The leading money winner from the PGA Tour for the 2021 season was Jon Rahm, who won $7,705,933 in 22 events. Assuming each PGA Tour round lasts 5 hours, that’s 20 hours of work for four rounds. So Rahm made $17,513 per hour of play.

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The disparity isn’t quite as large for female athletes. For instance, the average salary for a WNBA player is $100,658.51, while the highest-paid players can earn $215,000. A top-paid WNBA star such as Brittney Griner or Elena Della Donne can earn around $3,161 per hour of game time.

Another gazillionaire, Elon Musk, made no salary in 2020. However, Bloomberg reported that Musk made $6.7 billion in total compensation, which works out to $18.34 million per hour. Not bad.

On the other end of the salary spectrum, a high school sports coach makes $21 per hour, ZipRecruiter reported, while a social media manager in Beverly Hills, California, makes $25 per hour.

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