Highest Paid Lacrosse Player and Other Salaries for MLL & NLL
As of recently, there were a total of more than 825,000 different lacrosse players in just the United States alone. What this means, is that lacrosse is actually going to be the fastest sport to grow in America, the bulk of that growing happening with the NFHS member schools. Even though the popularity of lacrosse is on the rise, there are not really any professional lacrosse players who are actually enjoying a very lucrative career, especially when you compare them to the likes of baseball, basketball, football, and even soccer.
When it comes to being a professional lacrosse player and how much you are going to be paid, there are actually going to be a number of different factors that will play a hand in the amount that they are paid. The one thing that just about every single lacrosse player is able to agree on however, is that the amount that they are paid is nowhere near what they need in order to make any type of decent living. As a result of this lack of pay that lacrosse players receive, it is actually not going to be very uncommon to find that many of the professional lacrosse players actually have full-time jobs on the side in order to make things work out. You heard that right, most professional lacrosse players are going to have full-time jobs that they do on a daily basis in order to make a decent living, meaning that their professional lacrosse career is simply going to be nothing more than a hobby.
So, what is the average salary of a professional lacrosse player?
The Average Salary of a Professional Lacrosse Player
When it comes to international lacrosse players, they are going to be governed by the organization that is known as the Federation of International Lacrosse, the most important tournament being known as the World Lacrosse Championships. When it comes to that particular tournament, the United States is usually going to be the team that is able to dominate all of the other contestants. In fact, the United States is actually going to be the one team that is always going to dominate every other team in this particular international tournament. Some of the other notable participants in this tournament are going to be Australia, Canada, and even England.
Being that lacrosse has not yet grown to the popularity that some of the other sports have seen, the United States does have something that is known as the Major League Lacrosse, which is also going to be referred to as the MLL. While you may think that one major league lacrosse league would be enough, there is also going to be the National Lacrosse League, which is better known as the NLL. These two different leagues are going to consist of all the professional lacrosse players that the United States has to offer. The MLL is going to have a total of 9 different teams, while the NLL is going to have 11 total teams.
When it comes to how much these actual professional lacrosse players are actually being paid, that is going to vary depending upon a number of different factors, but you can expect the average lacrosse player to make somewhere around this amount:
- In the NLL, the average rookie is going to be paid barely over $9,000, the highest paid player in the entire league being paid around the $34,000 mark. This is going to be roughly four times less than the average rookie lacrosse player is going to make. When you compare this to that of any other sport, it is simply not going to compare at all.
- When it comes to the MLL, the average rookie salary is going to be about $7,000. Other players who are more established in the league, however, are going to be able to expect to make anywhere between $10,000 and $35,000 for each season. Again, this amount not necessarily being enough to make a comfortable living by any means.
When it comes to the professional female lacrosse player, the only league that they will be able to play in is going to be the UWLX, which is also known as the United Women’s Lacrosse League. The sport is actually so new to the professional level, that there are actually only going to be four different teams in this entire league. To make things ever worse for female lacrosse players, the fact of the matter is that they are actually not going to be paid any type of monetary amount. Instead, they are going to get some type of travel stipends.
The UWLX was a league that has been recently launched, getting its start in 2016. This means that the entire league and idea of female lacrosse is still very new. Perhaps, with some time and as the sport is able to grow, professional women lacrosse players will be able to start earning not only a salary, but the amount of money that they are worth.
With everything being said, the average salary for any lacrosse player, male or female, is going to be exceptionally low. On top of that, there is going to be. a wide gap between the highest paid lacrosse player and the lowest paid lacrosse player. At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter, as lacrosse players as a whole are going to be extremely underpaid for the amount of work and talent that they provide on a daily basis.
When it comes to the sport of lacrosse, it is going to be a sport that has not been able to acquire the popularity that some other sports have been able to. With that being said though, the players that have dedicated their lives to playing this sport are still going to be worth much more than they are being paid at the current moment. Hopefully, in time, lacrosse players will start to demand the amount of money that they are worth.
