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Chris Pronger explains how much income NHL players actually bring home
Transitioning to the second phase of life when your playing career wraps up is one of the toughest things for professional athletes, and former Hart Trophy winner Chris Pronger wanted to share his expertise with the world. Pronger, an 18-year NHL veteran who made nearly $114M over his career, broke down what the take-home pay would be on a five-year contract with an average annual value of $6 million, with the goal of illustrating financial literacy.
Pronger started the first of two major threads on April 4, stating that he was one of the highest-earning NHL players of his era, but by his estimate, more than 50 percent of players struggle with financial problems after retirement.
“An athlete can easily spend $20k/month,” Pronger wrote. “And since the avg. career is 4 seasons, an athlete might have $2m-$3m in savings when they’re done. But with spending habits already formed, in a few years there will be issues. And in my opinion, this is a fairly optimistic scenario.”
When you hear about X player making $30M over 5 years ($6M/yr) you think wow he made it. However that is not always the reality, in this thread I am going to break down how much they take home and where the rest of it goes.
— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
For this thread here is the example:
X player gets $30M paid over 5 years and earn on paper $6M a year. Here is who they pay:
Right off the bat escrow gets taken out of every check. On average about 10%. Most people have no idea about escrow. pic.twitter.com/uUcpyZaJUW— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
This is money that the NHL withholds from players in case the 50% revenue share is not met. In most cases the player never sees this money again. So that’s 10%
$6M salary minus escrow (10% avg.)
- $5,400,000— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
Next are federal taxes - 37%
We get bi-weekly checks (13) during the regular season. For each of those checks the gov’t gets 37% +-
• $2,000,000— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
Now you have to pay the local tax. That could be 0% like in TX & FL or as high as 16% in NYC. For this example let’s use 8%. There is another 8%
• $432,000— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
Next is agents. They vary but typically the average is 3%. BTW that is 3% of the gross not post tax. So there is another 3%
• $162,000— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
So let’s total this up now. Player X is now netting $2,806,000. That is a lot of money! But now they have to spend a little more money to do their job effectively.
Housing. Typically players are not from the city they play in so they either rent or buy a house (rent $5k month)— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
For health you typically have a chiropractor, masseuse and trainer that you are paying for in and out of season. ($20k/yr)
Vehicle. Need to get to and from practice and games. ($75k)
And finally nutrition. Nutritionist and food are $6-7k a month. ($60k/yr)— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
Now this is all the expenses just to be doing their job at a high level and not living the high life. Which certainly happens but not on this thread. Just a reminder these are averages and not fact!
— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
So Player X is netting $2,591,000. Which is around 43% of the total number. Now keep in mind the average career is 4 years and the average salary is $2M. So yes this is still a nice amount of money but most people don’t realize how much comes off the top before they get to invest
— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
Also keep in mind I am not including when athletes seasons are over they typically go somewhere to relax and unwind. Nor am I including a number of other ancillary expenses that typically come up. For me it was the odd suspension :(
— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) April 13, 2022
Twitter being Twitter of course, a lot of people didn’t take Pronger’s advice in good faith, questioning why a multi-millionaire athlete is speaking about financial hardship, when most people would have to work a lifetime to achieve a fraction of his earnings.
It's funny that Chris Pronger did a whole "NHL players aren't as rich as you think!" thread, and at the end of his example, the player was making $2.5 million a year net.
— Luke Peristy (@Luke_H_Peristy) April 13, 2022
wait until chris pronger finds out that normal people similarly pay taxes, rent, and groceries that leaves them with considerably less than 43% of their paycheck
— Michael Clifford (@SlimCliffy) April 13, 2022
My takeaway from Chris Pronger’s tweets is that several million dollars a year can go a long way with savvy budgeting
— gloryhole lifeguard (@phtevens) April 13, 2022
Professional athletes with money problems is a real issue but I, uh, find that Chris Pronger thread pretty insulting. Sorry your $5,000 per month rent and offseason vacations to unwind cuts into your salary.
— Adam Gretz (@AGretz) April 13, 2022
Pronger should earn the benefit of the doubt here, however. It didn’t appear that he was flaunting his wealth, but merely speaking to the very real problem of post-career bankruptcy which has plagued athletes across several different professional sports.
It wasn’t all bad. Some saw Pronger’s willingness to share his experience as a step in the right direction.
I don’t think Chris Pronger was looking for sympathy I think he was just trying to explain how if your career isn’t all that long you have to be smart about how you make those millions last past your career and there’s less to work with than you think is all.
— Laura (@theactivestick) April 13, 2022
hmm regrettably I think we have to like Retirement Chris Pronger https://t.co/c7PhBY2XPF
— findlay (@s_findlay) April 13, 2022
I'm not caping for millionaires but I'm kinda stunned at how many people are taking "Chris Pronger explains elite athlete incomes and expenses" to mean "Pronger says hockeys live a hard life :(" when the guy took great lengths to stress that he was doing the Exact Opposite 🤷♂️
— ⭐Dan⭐ (@265Kilometres) April 13, 2022
For now, we look forward to next week where Pronger may share his third tweet-thread of how to budget on a salary that we can only dream of.
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