This Is What I Call A Decent Salary!

March 30th, 2011

Let’s take a look at the world of sports
If your son (or daughter) came to you one day and said, “Dad, I’m signing up to become a racing driver,” or perhaps “Dad, I’m signing up to become a basketball player,” you may well be upset and start doing your best to discourage him or her. Read on and you may change your mind.

Nascar
Most people know that the National Football League (NFL) is the most popular sport on TV, but it may surprise you to hear that the second highest-rated sport is NASCAR, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. No longer just a heartland sport, NASCAR is broadcast in over 150 countries. With all this television coverage come the big money and high annual salaries. Unlike NFL salaries, however, NASCAR drivers’ salaries are closely-guarded secrets.

Drivers’ salaries
There is some information on NASCAR drivers’ salaries, thanks to SportsIllustrated.cnn.com. According to them, the highest-paid driver in 2005 was Dale Earnhardt Jr., whose annual salary and earnings totaled $5,761,830, but that’s not all. His endorsements earned $20,000,000, bringing his sub-total compensation to $25,761,830. That number doesn’t include sales of Dale Earnhardt Jr. merchandise and earnings from the racing company that he owns. SI says his total take in ’05 would approach $50 million! The second $25 million is really for his role as a business owner, not directly for Dale Jr.’s work as a race car driver. While there are substantial risks to racing, the pay is still impressive.

NASCAR jobs
When it comes to NASCAR jobs, where does all that money go? Foxsports crunched the numbers for a mid-level standard two-car team. For big name driving teams, multiply these numbers by one and a half or more:
Besides the drivers’ salaries described above, annual team salaries are $2.5-3.5 million, or an average salary of about $30,000 per year for 100 employees. Travel comes to $1 million per team, tires $1 million per team or $20,000 per race weekend plus testing, the in-house engine program cost $3.5 million and the cars $1-3 million per team. Heaps of big money.

The basketball scene
For the fourth year in a row, a study of salary information related to the NCAA Division I Men’s basketball tournament has been made public. All the invited schools were researched and pitted against each other according to their graduates’ average salaries. Salaries of people who attended the schools and are now 5-15 years into their careers and 30 to 40 years old, were examined.

The winners
The Tigers of Princeton University are the winners with an average post-graduation salary of $102,000 per year. It seems that whether or not the Princeton players get into the NBA, they’ll likely be able to afford a nice car, just not a collection of them.

Salaries
The average salary amongst all of the teams ranged from $69,000 to $68,000 per year. The winner, Princeton ($104,000), is sporting a higher salary than last year’s winner Duke Univeristy ($102,000), the bottom team Alabama State ($37,800) is over $10,000 per year below last year’s bottom place team, East Tennessee State ($49,400).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 30th, 2011 at 5:47 am and is filed under Economy, Employment, Finance, Money, Personal / Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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