NFL
What is the NFL commissioner salary?
While player and coach salaries are generally splashed across the front page news, executive salaries are rarely released publicly by the NFL
Chief Executive Officer, Roger Goodell is, by a very long stretch, the highest paid person in the NFL. Earning a fraction under $2 million dollars per year from each franchise, his $63 million dollar annual salary dwarfs the highest paid players. The eight-figure salary is 29% more than the league’s highest-paid player Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs, who brings in only $45 million.
Over the past two years, his total salary has approached $128 million, which includes bonuses that he received for labor and media deals made under his tenure.
When owners met in summer of 2006 to select a replacement for outgoing commissioner Paul Tagliabue, Roger Goodell rose through the voting process to see off all competitors and took the reins of the league on August 8th of that year. During his term, he has faced perhaps more scandal than any other commissioner in history, with Spy Gate, Deflategate, Bountygate, the 2011 lockout and the 2012 referee lockout. He headed negotiations with the Players Association over traumatic head trauma, eventually reaching a $765 million dollar settlement. His most criticised wrong step, he oversaw a rule implementation requiring players to stand for the anthem, effectively throwing Colin Kaepernick under the bus. In light of the George Floyd murder, he has since walked back his stance on the issue.
More recently, the commissioner has come under fire for refusing to release documents surrounding the investigation into workplace harassment at the Washington Football Team. Citing concerns over anonymity, Goodell said, "When you make a promise to protect the anonymity, to make sure that we get the right information, you need to stay with it. And so we're very conscious of making sure that we're protecting those who came forward. They were incredibly brave."
Back in 2017, Goodell’s base salary was $20 million per year when he signed a contract extension worth $200 million that keeps him as commissioner until 2024.
During a presentation at the owners-only meeting this week, a slide projection showed that Goodell made $63,900,050 in both 2019-20 and 2020-21, as reported by the New York Times. It is unclear how much Goodell has made over his entire tenure as commissioner, but the official figure of $428.7 million is widely thought to have been underestimated by as much as 20%. Forget the players and even the owners, the money in football is definitely in the boardroom.