How Long Does It Take Pro Athletes To Earn Your Salary?

Curious to see how your earnings stack up against those of Caitlin Clark, LeBron James, Patrick Mahomes and other sports starts?

Give the calculator a try and discover just how quickly these athletes could earn what takes you a year (or more) to make.

How To Use the Calculator

Follow these three steps to see quickly an athlete reaches your salary or savings goal:

1. Select Athlete: Pick one athlete from the dropdown.
2. Select Expense: Chose either your annual salary or a savings goal.
3. Enter Your Salary or Savings Goal: Type in the amount (USD) for the type of expense you selected.
4. Calculate: See how quickly that athletes reaches the amount.

See below for some examples using a $60,000 annual salary:

Professional athletes have dedicated years of intense training and discipline to reach the pinnacle of their careers. But all that work on the field really pays off for many of them come payday. Whether it’s a star quarterback signing a record-breaking contract (which happens seemingly every year at this point) or a tennis champion securing the winnings for a grand slam win, these figures often leave the rest of us wondering just how much they earn compared to the people watching them perform.

To put these figures into perspective, we gathered on-field earnings data of top athletes from different sports and built a calculator that shows how quickly popular athletes could earn your salary or reach your savings goal.

One thing to keep in mind as you explore the calculator is the significant disparity in pay between athletes of different genders. While popular male athletes often command multimillion-dollar contracts and tournament winnings, athletes in women’s sports generally earn significantly less, highlighting the ongoing conversation around the growth and value of women’s sports. Our calculator makes this discrepancy clear in real-life terms.