While the best players in the NFL are millionaires many times over, it’s not as easy for the rest of the league.
The NFL minimum salary for rookies was $795,000 in 2024, representing the smallest payday of any of the league’s nearly 1,700 active players who stay signed all year. It sounds lucrative, but as the wife of former NFL player Chad Hansen explained, life in the league isn’t always as opulent as it seems.
In a December video posted to TikTok, Bryce Watts Hansen debunked the misconception that everyone in the NFL is a millionaire.
Chad, now 29, spent five years in the NFL, bouncing between the New York Jets New England Patriots, Tennessee Titans, Denver Broncos New Orleans Saints, Houston Texans, Detroit Lions and Atlanta Falcons.
“He was on eight different NFL teams,” Watts Hansen said in the video. “That means eight different contracts are being signed and broken.”
She acknowledged that even at its worst, players still make considerable money, but it also comes with expenses many don’t consider — including Watts Hansen until she was confronted with the realities of having to constantly relocate.
“I know how to get a flight, move all our stuff. It’s kind of just like a cost that you have to eat.” she continued. “It’s just, like, all these little things that you can like have to play out in your head.”
The “NFLadies” podcast host added that at one point, she and her husband were paying rent in three different cities because of the unpredictable nature of his job. And for the month and a half that the wide receiver was a member of the Falcons, they paid $10,000 to move to Atlanta.
Watts Hansen also admitted to previously believing that all players were millionaires, but that’s not the reality for those who are constantly signed and then cut.
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“That would have been really great if that was the case, if we were one team and all that stuff,” she explained. “But you know, that’s just not the reality for everybody.”
“[Chad] signed a contract. Then a couple months later you get nothing, especially if you sign at the beginning of the offseason and then you’re cut during the offseason,” she added. “You’re not seeing any of that money because you haven’t played again and again, you haven’t gone to practice.”
Players also must account for the risky nature of their job. Watts Hansen said that the couple had to spend a considerable amount on doctors appointments, just another one of those “weird little things here and there.”
And even for players who have more stable careers, the money doesn’t go as far as some might think. The average NFL player only lasts three to four years in the league before being forced into retirement with no other professional experience. Even a six- or seven-figure salary in those few years won’t last for life.
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