ESPN Survey Claims Steelers Players Were Ninth-Highest Paid In Average Annual Salary

According to a recent global survey done by ESPN The Magazine and Sporting Intelligence, the Pittsburgh Steelers spent an average of $2.2 million on their players last season and that was the ninth highest in the league.

The Steelers are also ranked the No. 138 overall sports team in terms of annual salary paid to players, but have the 33rd highest payroll.

Now, I will let you know that while this list looks great on paper, the methodology appears to be extremely flawed.

For example, they state in the article that “Average Annual Pay” is calculated from base player salaries from current or most recently completed seasons from each sport. How did they handle NFL players who had their contracts restructured prior to the 2014 season? A lot of times restructures result in much lower base salaries as that method is used to massage the cap.

How will they count Ben Roethlisberger in 2015? He’s now scheduled to earn a million in base salary this season.

The 2011 collective bargaining agreement says teams must spend 89% of the salary cap in cash over two distinct four-year periods (2013-16 and 2017-20). With that said, it’s better to look at the per player spending by year based on those numbers. Even so, cash dollars by year can really vary and that’s why the CBA has the two four-year periods. Cash dollars and cap dollars are two different things.

Additionally, several teams prefer to use roster bonuses in addition to base salaries. According to the survey methodology, these also aren’t included and the same goes for LTBE and NLTBE incentives. In other words, their NFL data is probably very flawed and not a great reflection of actual spending by team.