The NBA’s overall worth has skyrocketed over the past few decades, and players are now making big money right from the start. And this isn’t a new trend, either. Jim Jackson recently recalled that he was making more in his rookie season in 1992 than Michael Jordan was earning in his fifth year.
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MJ is a very wealthy man today. But when you look at his contract during his prime years with the Chicago Bulls, it’s shocking compared to what many lesser players earn now. Between 1988 and 1995, Jordan was paid just $25.7 million. That’s almost unthinkable when you consider that today’s MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, makes $35 million per year.
Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf knew this. In the Netflix documentary, The Last Dance, he explained that the NBA would never be equal to what MJ was worth. That’s why he paid him his Bulls salary when he went off to play baseball. But still, even in the mid-1990s, salaries were going up. According to Jackson, it was already making veterans turn their heads.
“When I came in I was making $3 million per year [with the Dallas Mavericks]. Michael Jordan was making $2.6,” the 54-year-old said on Podcast P. “$2.6 on his deal. He got his big money on the back end when he got $36 million. At that time, Mike was making $2.6.”
Why are salaries rising so exponentially? Well, the NBA recently secured new media rights deals with Amazon, ESPN, ABC, and NBC. The package is estimated to be worth $76 billion. Those incoming funds factored into the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), which allows teams to operate with a higher salary cap and in turn, pay their players more.
But when you lay all the numbers out, it’s still wild to compare. No offense to Jackson, but in no world should he have been earning anywhere near what MJ was drawing at the time. Yet he did.
This disparity just goes to show that the business side of basketball is a whole different game.
And it’s not as if money only became a factor in the 21st century. Even back in the 1980s, NBA players were stunned at the idea of reaching the $1 million salary mark. Who broke that barrier? Magic Johnson of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Charles Barkley rejoiced over Magic getting paid $1 million per year
Charles Barkley remembers the exact moment he heard about Johnson’s lucrative contract and shared it during a recent interview with NFL legend Shannon Sharpe.
“I remember vividly. Me, Doc [Julius Erving], Moses [Malone], Bobby Jones, [and] Andrew Toney were in the locker room one day, and it broke that Magic Johnson had been the first NBA player to make a million dollars. We were walking around high-fiving each other,” Chuck recalled.
“We could not believe that an NBA player made a million dollars… That’s how crazy it was thinking about money back in the day,” the Hall of Famer added.
Barkley has been a vocal supporter of the CBA and players earning massive salaries in today’s NBA. But still, when you see a bench player or a role guy making more than some of the league’s all-time greats did in their prime, it just doesn’t sit right.
