NBA Salary - blast from the past

JasonEvans

JasonEvans

Host, The Duke Basketball Roundup
So, I came across this on Twitter/X this morning...

It is a snapshot of NBA salaries from 1988.
GSwnpLObsAAIYpB


Now, it would be easy to toss this aside as "oh, everything cost less in 1988." That would certainly be true. But if you adjust for inflation using the CPI as your inflation gauge, Michael Jordan's $2 mil salary is equal to earning $5.3 mil today.

Wow...
 
JasonEvans said:
So, I came across this on Twitter/X this morning...

It is a snapshot of NBA salaries from 1988.
GSwnpLObsAAIYpB


Now, it would be easy to toss this aside as "oh, everything cost less in 1988." That would certainly be true. But if you adjust for inflation using the CPI as your inflation gauge, Michael Jordan's $2 mil salary is equal to earning $5.3 mil today.

Wow...
Click to expand...
Those look pretty close to top teams' NIL dollars in college today. 🤣 of course, those aren't public information so we're left guessing...
 
JasonEvans said:
So, I came across this on Twitter/X this morning...

It is a snapshot of NBA salaries from 1988.
GSwnpLObsAAIYpB


Now, it would be easy to toss this aside as "oh, everything cost less in 1988." That would certainly be true. But if you adjust for inflation using the CPI as your inflation gauge, Michael Jordan's $2 mil salary is equal to earning $5.3 mil today.

Wow...
Click to expand...
I remember when the top players started hitting 8 figure deals ($10 million plus) and thinking it wasn't sustainable...I was right, just not in the way I expected to be :)
 
JasonEvans said:
Michael Jordan's $2 mil salary is equal to earning $5.3 mil today.
Click to expand...
Imagine how much prime Jordan would make if he were playing today, given his status as a marketing icon and the increased globalization of the sport. This link tells me that LeBron tops the list of total earnings last year among NBA players with $47.6M in salary plus $80M in endorsements, totalling $127.6M. That is nothing compared to the $260M earned by Ronaldo according to this ($200M salary, $60M endorsements which actually sounds low compared to LeBron). Jordan would likely approach Ronaldo's level, though it wouldn't surprise me in this alternate universe if the league created some sort of "Bird exception" rule that would allow Jordan to earn more than the max salary.

There is speculation that max salaries may increase to as high as $100M in the next couple seasons, so my theoretical 2026-2027 Jordan could be earning a $100M salary and let's say $200M in endorsements.
 
UrinalCake said:
There is speculation that max salaries may increase to as high as $100M in the next couple seasons, so my theoretical 2026-2027 Jordan could be earning a $100M salary and let's say $200M in endorsements.
Click to expand...
At a certain point, why not just give them a smaller salary and an ownership stake? I am sure that would be against some kind of CBA rules but it seems somewhat logical. Value the franchise at $5 bil and give them 1% a year over a 4-year deal.
 
LOL at Kelly Tripucka being the highest-paid Hornet. That dude was the bigger chucker this side of Reggie Theus.
 
Jordan was paid $33MM in salary in 1998, which would actually make him a top 50 paid player this coming year. His last two years with Chicago he earned 2/3rds of his career salary earning which were just under $100MM. Those numbers were insane at the time, but no one questioned he was worth every penny...except Jerry Reinsdorf who famously said to MJ, "I'm going to live to regret this".
 
Ya think Jordan would take a pay cut to allow the Bulls to sign Scottie Pippen or Bill Cartwright? I don't see that happening.
 
Maged said:
Ya think Jordan would take a pay cut to allow the Bulls to sign Scottie Pippen or Bill Cartwright? I don't see that happening.
Click to expand...

I wonder if anyone ever published an analysis of the impact Jordan had on the NBA Salary Cap due to his obvious positive influence on the value of NBA media rights? He could accurately say that he didn't need a paycut as he was already responsible for the team having more money allocated to pay every player on the roster.
 
As many of you know, I worked at the NBA in the mid to late '90's. In those days the Collective Bargaining Agreement allowed the NBA to market sponsored and licensed products and services by using groups of players. There were certain rules we had to follow, such as any group shot had to have at least 5 players in the image. There were certain exceptions, for instance, if the NBA was promoting Coke, one of its big sponsors, we would try our best to avoid using a 5-player photo that included a player who had a deal with Pepsi. But that was often difficult so the rationale was that if there were at least 5 players in the photo, it wouldn't look like any one of them specifically endorsed the product.

Anyway, Michael Jordan was completely and totally carved out of the CBA for this purpose and negotiated his own deal with the NBA for his sponsorships, such as Nike and Gatorade. Unless it was for one of Michael's partners, the NBA could not use his name or image. Period. He was essentially bigger and more important to the NBA than every other player combined. It boggles the mind the impact he had on the NBA and, IMO, professional sports.
 
Billy Dat said:
I wonder if anyone ever published an analysis of the impact Jordan had on the NBA Salary Cap due to his obvious positive influence on the value of NBA media rights? He could accurately say that he didn't need a paycut as he was already responsible for the team having more money allocated to pay every player on the roster.
Click to expand...
There's two separate issues - the team salary cap and the player salary cap. I'm probably butchering these facts but IIRC the team salary cap was negotiated up to its current level of 50% of league revenue sometime around 2016 which was when Miles Plumlee signed a max deal (one of the most fortunate contracts in NBA history). As far as the player salary cap, someone like Jordan could argue that he should be worth 100% of the team's cap given his value. A roster with Jordan and 12 minimum-contract veterans is something teams could actually build and make a profit from.
 
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