When it comes to global popularity, few sports capture the collective imagination quite like soccer and basketball.
Both are spectacles of athletic prowess, where players display jaw-dropping skills, outrageous reflexes, and the kind of physical conditioning that leaves us with admiration and envy.
But beyond the sweat, the sweet performances, and the cheers from millions of fans, there lies the one question that every aspiring athlete – or fan who follows the money – can’t help but wonder: Who earns more between soccer players and basketballers?
Before we go into the pool of salaries, endorsements, and figures, let’s clear the air on one thing: both soccer and basketball are wildly lucrative.
But as with all comparisons, the devil is in the details.
NBA Players Earn More Than Soccer Players (On Average)
Let’s start by cutting straight to the chase: on average, basketball players, specifically NBA players, earn more than professional soccer players. The numbers don’t lie—well, at least not when it comes to averages.
According to recent figures, the average salary for an NBA player hovers around a whopping $7 million per year. That’s a cool chunk of change to make your 9-to-5 look like pocket money.
Compare that with the average salary of a soccer player, which comes in around $100,000 to $1.5 million per year, depending on the league and country.
Ouch, right? That’s a significant difference for what, to many fans, are equally demanding and celebrated professions.
But here’s the kicker: soccer has a few tricks up its sleeve that make things much more interesting, and ultimately, this battle of salaries is far more complex than it first appears.
Why NBA Players Have Higher Average Salaries
If we’re just comparing the average player from the NBA and, say, the Premier League or La Liga, you might assume basketball comes out on top. But why?
One factor is the team size.
In basketball, rosters are much smaller—around 12 to 15 players. This allows for a larger share of the revenue pie per player. In contrast, soccer teams often consist of around 25 players, meaning the salary pool is spread thinner.
Fewer players in basketball, but bigger slices of the financial pie.
Endorsement deals, player contracts, and managerial budgets in basketball also concentrate on fewer individuals, allowing NBA players, particularly the top stars, to bring in even more cash.
This is especially true in the United States, where sports are aggressively commercialized and players are treated as both athletes and marketable celebrities.
Superstar Salaries
Now, if we ditch the averages and focus on the superstars in each sport, the numbers begin to get more competitive.
You don’t need to be a sports analyst to know that soccer’s biggest names—Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Neymar—are in a league of their own when it comes to earnings.
And I’m not just talking about what they get for lacing up their cleats.
Messi, for instance, earns around $60 million annually just from his salary with Inter Miami. Throw in another $60 million or so from endorsements, and you’re looking at over $120 million a year.
Cristiano Ronaldo? Similarly jaw-dropping figures.
In fact, he became the highest-paid athlete in the world in 2023 after signing with Al-Nassr in Saudi Arabia. Neymar, the showman of PSG (now Al-Hilal), comfortably sits at the top of football’s earning hierarchy with over $95 million in yearly income from salary and endorsements combined.
On the NBA side, Stephen Curry, LeBron James, and Kevin Durant lead the pack, with Curry’s annual salary topping out around $49 million from the Golden State Warriors.
When you add his endorsement deals, his yearly take-home hits close to $95 million.
LeBron James? His annual salary might be $45 million, but thanks to endorsements, investments, and side hustles (like acting in Space Jam 2), King James nets over $120 million a year.
It’s here where soccer and basketball see some crossover, with both sports producing players who can breach the $100 million barrier.
But if we’re talking who earns more as a superstar, soccer might just edge ahead in overall earnings thanks to a larger global market.
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Soccer’s Global Reach vs. The NBA’s American Stronghold
This is where soccer shines. While the NBA is king in the United States and enjoys strong followings in countries like China and across Europe, soccer is a global religion.
The sport is played in nearly every country, and major leagues like the English Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga, and Italy’s Serie A have die-hard fans in nearly every corner of the world.
And when it comes to endorsements, this global appeal makes a huge difference. Soccer superstars are much more likely to secure lucrative endorsement deals across multiple continents.
Messi and Ronaldo, for example, have global partnerships with companies like Adidas, Nike, and Coca-Cola, which allows them to capitalize on their international fame. Soccer’s fanbase is larger, and its market reach is broader.
While the NBA’s stars are massive icons in the U.S., they don’t have the same global presence, meaning their endorsement opportunities, though still significant, are more regionally focused.
How European Soccer Salaries Stack Up
For players in top European leagues, salaries are eye-popping, but again, they aren’t spread as evenly as in the NBA.
In the Premier League, the average player salary is around $3.9 million annually. Spain’s La Liga players pull in an average of $2.75 million, with Italy’s Serie A and Germany’s Bundesliga coming in slightly below that.
France’s Ligue 1 trails behind with an average salary of about $1.54 million per player.
While the global reach of soccer might make the sport more lucrative overall, basketball’s concentrated power in the U.S. and smaller rosters allow for higher salaries across the board, especially when considering league-wide averages.
But Europe’s top players can still go toe-to-toe with basketball’s best. Messi and Ronaldo (before his move to Saudi Arabia) both regularly topped the charts, pulling in salaries that rival the best in the NBA.
The key difference here is that soccer’s high earners are largely concentrated at the very top of the sport, whereas basketball salaries tend to be higher across the board, from stars down to role players.
What About Non-European Soccer Leagues?
Here’s where it gets even more interesting: soccer players outside of Europe earn substantially less than their European counterparts.
If you’re a soccer player in leagues like Major League Soccer (MLS) in the U.S. or Brazil’s Série A, you’re not going to see the same kind of paychecks as those in Europe.
For example, Lionel Messi, the highest-paid player in MLS, pulls in $20.4 million — more than the guaranteed compensation totals of 25 MLS rosters. Which is decent but nowhere near Premier League or NBA money.
The average player in MLS, however, earns around $594,390 per year.
While it’s a solid income, it’s clear that the sport’s true financial power lies in Europe, where the top clubs attract big money from television deals, sponsorships, and, of course, fans willing to pay top dollar for tickets and merchandise.
Outside of Europe, soccer salaries drop significantly, and in leagues like those in Mexico or Brazil, players are often earning much less than their European and NBA counterparts.
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The Commercialization of American Sports: The NBA’s Advantage
If we zoom out a little, we can see that one of the reasons basketball players—particularly NBA players—earn so much is because of the commercialization of sports in America.
The NBA has become a marketing machine, driven by billionaire owners, lucrative TV deals, sponsorship agreements, and, of course, massive ticket sales.
Even when we look at Forbes’ list of the most valuable sports teams in the world, soccer teams like Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, and Bayern Munich do make the top 10, but the list is otherwise dominated by American teams, especially from the NBA and NFL.
That gives us some insight into why salaries in the NBA tend to be higher: more revenue generated means more money to pay players.
So… Who Earns More?
The verdict? It depends on how you slice the numbers. On average, NBA players earn more than soccer players due to the smaller roster sizes and the highly commercialized nature of American sports.
However, when it comes to the superstars, soccer players can edge ahead, thanks to the sport’s global appeal and enormous endorsement deals.
If you’re a basketball player in the NBA, you’re almost guaranteed to be making more than your average soccer player. But if you’re a Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, or Neymar? Well, then you’re living in a world where the term “more money than you can spend” becomes a reality.
Soccer Closing the Gap?
Soccer is on the rise, especially in markets like the United States, where the sport has traditionally played second fiddle to American football, basketball, and baseball.
With increasing investments in leagues like MLS, as well as growing TV audiences, it’s entirely possible that the gap in average salaries between soccer and basketball could narrow in the future.
Also , as soccer’s global popularity continues to climb and sponsorship dollars increase, we could see even more superstars like Messi and Ronaldo breaking salary records.
But for now, while soccer may be the world’s favorite sport, when it comes to average player salaries, basketball still reigns supreme.
