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Although the best players in the NFL are millionaires several times over, it’s not so easy for the rest of the league.
The NFL’s minimum salary for rookies was $795,000 in 2024, which represents the smallest payday of any of the league’s nearly 1,700 active players who remain signed through the year. It sounds profitable, but as the wife of a former NFL player Chad Hansen he explained, life in the league is not always as exuberant as it seems.
In a December video posted to TikTok, Bryce Watts Hansen dispel the misconception that everyone in the NFL is a millionaire.
Chad, now 29, spent five years in the NFL, bouncing between the New York Jets New England Patriots, Tennessee Titans, Denver Broncos New Orleans Saints, Houston Texans, Detroit Lions and Atlanta Falcons.
“He was on eight different NFL teams,” Watts Hansen said in the video. “That means eight different contracts are signed and broken.”
He acknowledged that even at his worst, players still make significant money, but it also comes with expenses that many don’t consider – including Watts Hansen until she faces reality having to relocate constantly.
“I know how to get a flight, move all our stuff. It’s kind of just like a cost you have to eat.” she continued. “All these little things that you can like have to play out in your head.”
The “NFLadies” podcast host added that at one point she and her husband paid rent in three different cities due to the unpredictability of her job. And for the month and a half that the wide receiver was a member of the Falcons, they paid $10,000 to move to Atlanta.
Watts Hansen also admitted that he used to believe that all players were millionaires, but that is not the reality for those who are constantly signed and then cut.
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“That would have been really great if that was the case, if we were one team and all that stuff,” he explained. “But you know, that’s not the reality for everyone.”
“(Chad) signed a contract. Then a few months later, you don’t get anything, especially if you sign at the beginning of the offseason and then get cut in the offseason,” he added. “You don’t see any of that money because you haven’t played repeatedly, you haven’t gone to practice.”
Players must also account for the dangerous nature of their job. Watts Hansen said the couple had to spend a significant amount on doctor’s appointments, just another one of the “odd little things here and there”.
And even for players with more established careers, the money doesn’t go as far as some might think. The average NFL player only lasts three to four years in the league before being forced to retire without any further professional experience. A six or seven figure salary even in those few years won’t last a lifetime.
