Pro Football Salaries vs. Surgeon Salaries: The Salary Super Bowl

As Super Bowl start time nears, this seems like an opportune moment to examine pro football salaries. Of course, the big question is, “Who is the highest-paid player?” The often-disappointing Atlanta Falcons failed to make the playoffs, but their quarterback, Michael Vick had a great season. He topped all pro football salaries with an annual salary of $23.1 million.

In the world of pro football salaries, is he worth 23.1 million? Well, in 2006, Michael Vick became the only quarterback in NFL history to rush for over 1,000 yards. But what if we compare this football player salary to a cardiothoracic surgeon salary in the Atlanta area?  How does a football player measure up to someone who saves lives? With 5-9 years of experience, a cardiothoracic surgeon salary averages out to $329,229, less than 2% of Vick’s salary!

How does your salary score against pro football salaries (as reported on CNN.Money.com)? Find out with our salary survey

Comparing Quarterbacks to Surgeons

Obviously, more people (millions) would rather watch football than surgery. The national TV audience accounts for the enormous pro football salaries, but the salary disparity between playing a game and practicing life-saving medicine often raises eyebrows. Get yours ready as we take a look at the next 4 highest pro football salaries and compare them with average surgeon salaries.

A caveat: the salaries we quote are for surgeons who earn a salary, in other words, who are employees. These doctors may work on staff at a hospital or large HMO. All football players are similarly employees: they have a boss, a contract, and are not paid based on the profitability of the business.

However, most doctors are actually small business people. As such, each owns a practice, hustles for business, negotiates rates with insurance companies, manages employees, and decides how much income he or she can draw from the practice. With that risk, comes reward: the annual incomes of doctors who own their own practices are significantly higher. Similarly, if football players want to earn more, they can buy the team :-)

Plastic Surgeon Salaries & NFL Football Salary by Position

Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck of the Seattle Seahawks comes in at number 2 with an annual salary of $19,005,280. Let’s compare the Seahawks' all-time highest-rated passer to a Seattle plastic surgeon with 10-19 years of experience. A Seattle plastic surgeon salary averages out to $234,089, with a high-end of $322,161; that is less than 2% of Hasselbeck’s annual salary. If the Seattle QB takes a nasty hit to the face, at least we know he can afford treatment.

While a plastic surgeon salary doesn't compare to Hasselbeck's salary, plastic surgeons are in demand. According to walled-in-pond.blogspot.com, CEOs on trial for corporate crime actually believe they can improve their chances for acquittal with surgery before going on trial.

Pro Football Salaries and Surgeon Salary Comparisons

At number 3, we find St. Louis Rams offensive tackle Orlando Pace, with an annual salary of $18 million. Orlando has seven Pro Bowls and a Super Bowl win on his resume. Let’s compare him to orthopedic surgeons, who treat with chronic, acute and traumatic injuries. With 5-9 years of experience, the average orthopedic surgeon salary in St. Louis is $144,421, that’s less than 1% of Pace’s annual salary. Apparently, it pays better to block (and break) people, than to fix them.

At number 4 in pro football salaries is offensive tackle Walter Jones of the Seattle Seahawks, who earns an annual salary of $17,701,320. The 7-time Pro Bowler is one of eight kids raised by a mom who made an hourly wage of $3.75 (as mentioned on seattletimes.nwsource.com). Jones works out in the off-season by pushing an SUV around a parking lot, but can he topple a Seattle trauma surgeon salary?

What Football Salary Caps?

In hospitals, trauma surgeons make life and death choices everyday. They work in emergency rooms to save lives and/or stabilize patients. With that in mind, the average trauma surgeon salary in Seattle (with 20 or more years of experience) is $161,840, topping out at $227,797. That’s far more than Jones’ mom making $3.75 an hour, but less than 2% of his eight-figure salary. Still, if I had an emergency, I think I'd want the low wage earner taking care of me.

Clocking in at number 5 in pro football salaries is New England Patriot Quarterback Tom Brady with an annual salary of $15.6 million. One of the best quarterbacks ever, Brady has three Super Bowl wins, two Super Bowl MVP awards and three Pro Bowl appearances to his credit, but how does his annual salary compare to a Boston cardiac surgeon salary?

Heart Surgeon Salary

Cardiac surgeons, also known as heart surgeons, perform a variety of life-saving surgeries. For all their amazing expertise, a Boston-based heart surgeon salary averages $284,340 and has a high salary range of $400,050 (for a practitioner with 10-19 years of experience). Let’s take the high-end number, $400,050, and compare it to Tom Brady’s annual salary. I’m am pleased to report that a heart surgeon salary breaks the 2% glass ceiling, but is still less than 3% of Brady’s salary.

Call me a crazy dreamer, but hopefully, someday, surgeons will make at least half of what the top football players earn, but it doesn’t seem likely.

For the parents out there, you may not what to show this article to your kids, lest they forgo school books for dreams of massive pro football salaries. However, is that the conclusion they should draw?

This is a great place to consider the difference between top, median, and mean (average) pay. The median professional football salary of the ~50 graduating NCAA division I-A quarterbacks last year was $0/year, since only 12 QBs were even drafted by the NFL. Sure, perhaps another dozen or so went to the CFL or elsewhere, but is that "making it" in pro football?

In contrast, about 16,000 people become doctors each year in the US, and all of them are paid. Yes, the pay-off is huge for the handful of people who become pro quarterbacks, leading to a high top earner pay, but the odds are not good. Betting on being a pro quarterback for your lifetime income is like betting on winning the lottery.

Actually, I take that back: far more people win millions in the lottery each year than become professional football quarterbacks :-)

How does your salary play in the big leagues? Find out with our salary survey.

Cheers,

Dr. Al Lee

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Comments

[george]

i think thats wrong that people throwing a football around are making more money that people who save your life.

[Chris]

Many of the average/base salaries for physicians/surgeons posted in this article are off by hundreds of thousands of dollars...

[Dr. Al Lee, PhD]

Dear Chris,

Please see my recent post in response to your comment: http://blogs.payscale.com/ask_dr_salary/2007/07/why-are-payscal.html

Cheers,

Al Lee (Dr. Salary)

[tsk]

Doctors that own their own practices do make more, but most doctors don't, contrary to what was stated in this article

[Isaac]

It is really hard to become a doctor yes, but the end benefit of a lifetime job is in most cases for sure. Sure football player's make more but if they break a leg it's over, so all surgeon's consider yourself lucky.

[Julia]

I don't think it's fair that football players get paid more, because doctors/surgeons work harder than people who throws a ball all day. It doesn't take a genius to do that.

[John]

Surgeons work for 30-40 years. Football players are in the NFL for maybe 10 years. They deserve to make enough for a secure future. Surgeons are still in the upper tax bracket - Stop whining.

[AminX (Future Surgeon)]

Wow... And I want to be a trauma surgeon, but I still think that 160,000 is a good salary? No?

[PAIGE]

MICHAEL VICK KILLS DOGS AND HE GETS 23.1 MILLION WHILE PEOPLE WHO SAVE LIVES GET ONLY 329 THOUSAND? LESS THEN 2%!?

FOOTBALL PLAYERS DONT DESERVE THAT MUCH.
THEY GET GIRLS. ISNT THAT ENOUGH!?

[ddl]

Baseball and football players gets paid to do what? Where does the money to pay them come from? American Soldiers putting their lives in danger and protecting our country are having hard time getting the necessary medical care, and these people are paid exorbitant salaries!

And what do they do with all the money? This disparity need to stop sometime somehow. Stop going to ballgames and stop paying for the high price of tickets and then see how they make all the money. Ballgames are great pasttimes, but the game has lost its true meaning.

It is all money, money, money and nothing else. Why should we give such an importance such things when our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, uncles, are braving their life in Iraq and Afghanistan? Can't we just give up our enjoyment for at least one season and support our troops instead of paying for the ballgame tickets?

[atyy]

My friend is a cardiac surgeon at the mass ganeral hospital and he wins 800k.

[Sam]

Julia you have no idea what you are talking about..do the math. It still doesn't add up. Do you think its a gift being in the upper tax bracket? The way the IRS is these days come on. Use your head , life saving vs. playing football. I'm sorry it doesn't make sense. Especially in our society today. Athletes are lauded for their skill , which they should be. At the other end of the scale physicians are vilified. We have a serious problem in America these days with a doctor shortage. No one wants to go to med school. The pay out is irrelevant. Liability is up , significantly higher than it was before. So where's the incentive. Wait wait here we go..study for 7 years than do another 3-10 years of residency with or without fellowship , then get out and fight with insurance companies to get paid ( family prac, internal med, general surgery ) , oh yeah and even if you help someone..that same someone may be a gold digger that sues you for something ridiculous (the big dogs hardly ever get the suite more often than not its the lone family prac). So now you've spent almost 20 years in school , have school loans to pay , and have no license. Yeah I'm gonna apply to med school tommorrow. People wonder why we have a doctor shortage and every kid out there wants to make it big as an actor , athlete or musician. I'm sorry but this stuff just doesn't add up.

[igk]

It is a mystery to me why people like sports. You can get a monkey and teach it to throw the ball left and right, and run up and down the yard. WOW, how interesting.

If you like sports you need to get your head checked. Watching guys in tights running around and screwing each other in the locker rooms. Not to mention their average IQ. I hope some terrorist group would take some Pro whoever team hostage and massacre the overpaid idiots. As for sports fans, READ BOOKS instead.

[Ello]

I've no idea what to say, but I don't really understand why football players are paid more than surgeons, even though the surgeons have higher education than football players..and also actors and actresses

[Yami]

Well, one things guys, you have to remember that surgeons do what they do because they like it, not mainly because of the pay. All of those people out there that go to college to become surgeon and make the big bucks, are gone within a few years of study. All of us that want to be surgeons have plenty of things motivating us, but not money, because money alone can't make someone want to give up 18 years of their life in college, med school, internship, residency, and fellowships. And really, you don't hear the surgeons complaining much about it either do you? They don't care much for the money, but more for the rewarding feeling that you get knowing that you saved a life, or at least attempted to.

[idk]

Yes, it is unfair that football players get payed more than surgeons, but what's life? Is life fair? NO not really.

Whatever huge amounts of people think is fun is what is naturally popular. Thus, the people who play the sport, (like football) would naturally make a lot of money. Most people think that watching surgeons on sunday night at 8pm isn't fun. It's life.

[Monica Navarro]

Hi Dr. Al Lee PhD, I am a college student at the University of Texas at Austin, and I have a paper due on an issue relating to pro football. Turns out that you actually posted an article relating to exactly what I needed! THANK YOU! Someone feels the way I do!

If you have anything else to input on your position of the pro football salaries it would be really helpful (if you have time). But Lastly, I just wanted to say that I COMPLETELY AGREE with you!

Monica Navarro

[Chris Willis]

I don't have anything against pro football, because that's what I want to become. I couldn't think of anywhere else to put my comment, so I put it here.

[Ashish]

This article is absurd to say the least...

Comparing the salaries of the highest paid football players to the average doctor is unfair to say the least. How about all of the football players who don't make it to the NFL? There are only about 1500 NFL players in the world in a given year vs. 100s of thousands of doctors. It is easier to become a doctor than to be become an NFL player - that is why they get paid more!

Additionally, the average career of an NFL is something like 5 years vs a doctor who can practice for 30-40 years. The average salary across the NFL is about $1.5M a year which would be on average $7.5M in their career vs. a doctor $300k/year * 40 years = $12M over their career.

Any of you doctors who don't like the fact that football players get paid should try to go out and become a pro player and stop complaining.

[Trisha]

I think that if you're comparing the top paid football players you should compare them to the top paid surgeons. In your stats you say the "average" salary of a surgeon so you should be comparing their salary to the "average" salary of a football player, not the top paid football players.

[AC23]

The above poster is right, if you want to compare salaries, don't use someone with Tom Brady's status. How about the football "journeymen" who bounce from team to team?

At most they get maybe a 6 digit salary for one year and that's it. I'm an orthopedic surgeon who has played college basketball and had stints in professional basketball leagues in Europe and minor leagues in the US.

The odds of making it to the NBA is nearly impossible. The same goes for the NFL. Sure, they get million dollar contracts, but their field is highly competitive and you could find yourself out of a job within no time. Not to mention the average lifespan of an NBA player or an NFL player is around five years.

And for those of you who whine about pro athletes who "throws a ball around" making more than a surgeon, why don't you all start a campaign and block people from watching sports? After all, it's the fans who pay these people the bucks, not anyone else. I appreciate the outcry, but this surgeon thinks that the pro athletes absolutely deserve to get paid millions.

[Da King]

Well, i know that a regular Surgeon can make $200-300K year starting income ($400-500K if you start out as a specialty like Neurosurgery, Orthopedic Surgery or Cardiac Surgery), and as they become very experienced, plus if they open private practice, upper six figures and seven figures are very common for experienced surgeons. But i got admit being an MD is more respectable then being a pro Athlete. I mean, after all, they gone through rigorous education and training and they at least love learning and always got good grades, unlike those Pro Athletes who have an IQ of less than 100 most of time lol.

[Alice]

i think surgeons should have a higher pay because they have more education. also they save lives whereas pro football players only entertain people.

[ngh]

OK stop whining about this. Surgeons get paid enough, but a pro athlete has a gift that no one else does. Obviously the people on this forum don't recognize that.

For the people that are "wondering why" this salary disparity occurs: It's called the media. Millions of people tune in to watch soccer, football, basketball, you name it. Millions of people pay up to go watch movies. These millions of dollars work their way down to the athletes and actors and actresses. I agree that the payout is often ridiculous, but these people have beaten the odds. Give them their glory for what it's worth. The other thousands who banked on getting in failed and have nothing now. Someone who gets a degree in surgery can keep that for life.

[hello]

shut up this isnt true u suck