Tom Brady Is NFL’s Top Earner for First Time

It took him 45 years, seven Super Bowl wins, and a brief retirement, but Tom Brady is finally the NFL’s highest-paid player.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ superstar quarterback will earn $75 million this year, including $45 million from off-field endeavors, per Forbes.

In addition to his $30 million salary, Brady has endorsement deals with seven companies, including Hertz and FTX. He has also co-founded two media companies, an NFT company, a clothing line, and a training and nutrition brand.

• Matthew Stafford ($65.5 million), Aaron Rodgers ($53 million), and Patrick Mahomes ($51.5 million) followed Brady on the list.
• All top 10 NFL earners were quarterbacks.
• Collectively, the top 10 will earn $370 million, just missing the $373 million record set in 2018.

The NFL’s salary cap rose $25.7 million from 2021 to 2022, reaching $208.2 million. Last year was the first time the cap fell in a decade, due to pandemic-related revenue losses.

Media Money Incoming

The NFL will be flush with cash for some time thanks to its latest round of media deals, which kick in next year — though Amazon’s exclusive pact for “Thursday Night Football” begins this season.

The league secured more than $110 billion over 11 years from CBS, NBC, Disney, Fox, and Amazon — and that’s before factoring in a future deal for NFL Sunday Ticket that could reach $2.5 billion per season and revenue from the league’s new streaming service, NFL+.