What is the average NBA player salary per season?
Guess before you scroll — the answer is below
The answer
$11,900,000
Roughly $11.9M.
The average NBA salary is around $11.9 million, the highest of any major team sport in the world — a consequence of small rosters and enormous broadcast revenue split among about 450 players. The median is lower, since supermax contracts pull the mean up hard.
How to get close to this number
Divide league revenue by players. The league earns somewhere around ten billion a year, roughly half goes to player salaries under the collective agreement, and it is split among about four hundred and fifty players. Revenue times share divided by headcount gives a figure in the low tens of millions.
The roster size is the whole reason this is the highest-paying team sport in the world. A comparable revenue pool divided among fifteen players per team rather than fifty produces individual salaries several times larger, which the NFL question on this site demonstrates from the other side.
The median caveat matters as it does everywhere: supermax contracts pull the mean up hard, so the typical player earns meaningfully less than the average. In any distribution where a handful of individuals earn ten times the middle, the mean describes the top and the median describes the profession.
Where this number comes from
| Source | NBA collective bargaining data reported by Spotrac |
|---|---|
| Figure refers to | 2025 |
| Last checked | |
| Unit | dollars |
Numbers move. If this one has drifted from its source, let us know.
Think you can do better?
Five fresh questions every day. No account needed.
Related questions
- What is the capacity of Camp Nou?
- How many kilometres does a footballer run in a match?
- What is the top speed of a Formula 1 car, in miles per hour?
- What was Usain Bolt’s top speed, in miles per hour?
- How fast does a professional forehand travel, in miles per hour?
- How fast is the fastest Formula 1 pit stop, in seconds?