How Much Money Can Mark Sanchez Earn During The NFL Playoffs?

Do you ever watch the NFL Playoffs and wonder how much money is on the line for the players? After all, each game is an extra week of work, and you’d think, given the stakes, the payoff would be pretty hefty for everyone involved. And you’d be right. Sort of.

As CNBC reports today, NFL players earn more for postseason victories than athletes in other sports. But at the same time, the numbers below aren’t as big as you might expect from a billion dollar enterprise like the NFL:

Let’s take a Jets or Packers player for example, who each played an extra game because they played in the Wildcard. They made $19,000 each for the Wildcard game, $21,000 each for winning the Divisional Playoff Game and are guaranteed $38,000 for the Title Game. Should they win the Super Bowl, they’d make $83,000 (losers make $42,000).

They’re not exactly sweatshop wages, true. But when you break it down, for a lot of the best players, the playoff numbers amount to a pretty significant pay-cut. Take someone like Mark Sanchez, who’ll make just 10.6% of what he’d earn in four regular season games if the Jets win the Super Bowl. So how does it even out for superstars like Sanchez?

Come on! It’s the playoffs, and money shouldn’t matter. Like Shane Falco once said, “Glory lasts forever.”

And as Super Bowl winner Jimmy Johnson can tell you 15 years later, sponsors LOVE glory.