Stephen Curry was the top-earning player in the National Basketball Association (NBA) between October 2024 and 2025, with on-court earnings of 59.6 million U.S. dollars and endorsements worth 100 million U.S. dollars. Trailing the legendary point guard was another basketball icon, LeBron James, with total earnings of 137.6 million U.S. dollars. NBA revenue streams Players in the NBA have two main sources of revenue: salaries from the team, and endorsements from companies and brands. NBA players not only have deals with sports brands such as Nike and Adidas, but also with consumer products such as Coca-Cola, Panini, Kia Motors, and Red Bull, to name a few. Shoe deals are particularly profitable for NBA players. Michael Jordan, for example, still profits from endorsements, as his signature Air Jordan shoes have a large share of the basketball shoe market. King James reigns supreme Although Steph Curry earned more in 2024/25, LeBron James remained the NBA player with the highest cumulative career earnings as of November 2025, with over 580 million U.S. dollars in on-court earnings. As a four-time MVP winner and the NBA's all-time highest scorer, James' earnings have certainly been backed up by his on-court performances.

As of November 2025, the player in the National Basketball Association (NBA) with the highest cumulative career earnings was LeBron James, with total earnings of approximately 581.32 million U.S. dollars. LeBron James has played for the Los Angeles Lakers since 2018. Before this, James also played for the Miami Heat and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The NBA and WNBA are the two top leagues for basketball in the United States for men and women, respectively. In the NBA, players took home an average annual salary of over ** million U.S. dollars for the 2024/25 season, with the league's minimum salary set at **** million U.S. dollars that year. In comparison, players in the WNBA received an average annual pay of ******* U.S. dollars in the 2025 season, with the highest-earning players in the WNBA receiving around ******* U.S. dollars annually.

During the 2025 season, Kelsey Mitchell of the Indiana Fever had the highest salary among players in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) with ******* U.S. dollars. In second place was Arike Ogunbowale with ******* U.S. dollars. How much do WNBA rookies earn? In the lead up to the 2025 WNBA season, one of the most pressing issues surrounding the league was the pay structure. The previous year had seen college basketball superstar Caitlin Clark enter the league as the overall number one pick. Despite being a major draw for the WNBA, Clark's rookie salary stood at under ****** U.S. dollars. In 2025, this increased marginally for the number one pick Paige Bueckers to ****** U.S. dollars. How much are men’s National Basketball Association (NBA) players paid? Compared to the top earners in the women’s league, the picture in the men's league is a little different. Some of the highest-paid male professional basketball players take home eye-watering amounts each year. Steph Curry of the Golden State Warrior sat at the top of the pile in 2024/25 season, earning ** million U.S. dollars for his appearances in the NBA, on top of a further *** million U.S. dollars' worth of endorsements. Overall, average annual salaries in the NBA are much higher than in the WNBA. On average, NBA players took home more than ** million U.S. dollars in 2024/25, while WNBA players earned roughly ******* U.S. dollars in 2025.

In the 2024/25 season, the Phoenix Suns franchise had the highest player expenses in the National Basketball Association. That season, the Suns spent 213 million U.S. dollars on player salaries and ranked 11th as the NBA's most valuable franchise. Meanwhile, the NBA's other LA-based franchise, the 17-time champions LA Lakers, had player expenses of 185 million U.S. dollars.

With each player taking home a handsome 8.32 million U.S. dollars every year, the NBA is the professional sports league with the highest player wages worldwide. In second place is the Indian Premier League, an annual cricket competition contested each year between eight franchises representing eight different Indian cities.

Big money in the NBA Although the wages that players in the NBA take home are astronomical, the average annual salaries vary from one team to another. Whilst the New York Knicks pay their players an average of 7.08 million U.S. dollars a year, Portland Trail Blazers spent around 10.04 million U.S. dollars annually on each of their stars in 2019/20. NBA salaries have tremendously increased throughout the years reaching 8.32 million U.S. dollars in 2019/20 compared to 4.6 million U.S. dollars in 2015/16.

In February 2023, LeBron James broke the NBA all-time points record, scoring 38 points in the LA Lakers' 133-130 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Following the game, James' total stood at 38,390. The previous record holder, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, had scored 38,387 points for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Lakers in an illustrious 20-year career spanning from 1969 to 1989. As of December 2025, James had a total of 42,184 points, breaking the 40,000-point mark in a 2024 loss to the Denver Nuggets. Who has scored the most points in NBA playoffs? This statistic only shows points scored in regular-season NBA games and does not take the playoffs into account. Prior to breaking the all-time points record, LeBron James already held the record for the most points scored in NBA playoffs, which stood at 8,289 points as of 2025. He is also the career leader for the Cleveland Cavaliers, for which he played a total of 11 seasons, in many important statistical categories like points, assists, rebounds, steals, and games played. James has been similarly dominant off the court, being the second highest-paid player in the NBA, with his total earnings reaching over 130 million U.S. dollars in the 2024/25 season. Who has the most NBA assists? After a career spanning 19 years with the Utah Jazz, John Stockton holds the all-time record for the most assists in the NBA. In his time with the Jazz, Stockton had a total of 15,806 assists and was a 10-time All-Star, however, never won an NBA championship. Ranked second and third for assists were Chris Paul and Jason Kidd, respectively.

In 2024/25, the 30 franchises comprising the National Basketball Association (NBA) recorded a total revenue amounting to **** billion U.S. dollars. This was an increase of over *** billion dollars from the previous year. What are the NBA's main sources of revenue? Among the NBA's main sources of income are broadcasting deals, sponsorships, and gate receipts. In particular, the NBA's sponsorship revenue has consistently exceeded one billion U.S. dollars since the 2017/18 season. One of the league's main sponsors since then has been Nike, which is the league's official outfitter. Meanwhile, the share of overall revenue from gate receipts in the NBA was around ** percent in 2024/25. Which NBA team generates the most revenue? With a revenue of *** million U.S. dollars, the Golden State Warriors were the NBA team with the highest revenue in the 2024/25 season. Between 2015 and 2023, the Warriors were a dominant force in the NBA, appearing in six of eight finals and winning four championships, ending their trophy drought stretching back to 1975. However, the Warriors still have some way to go to match the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers as the NBA teams with the most championships, with the Celtics winning a record **** championship title in 2024.

As the first pick of the NBA Draft for the 2025/26 season, Cooper Flagg of the Dallas Mavericks had the most valuable contract among that season's new batch of rookies. For the first year of Flagg's contract, the young man from Maine was guaranteed to earn **** million U.S. dollars. If the Mavericks decided to trigger Flagg's contract for a total of four years, the number one pick would earn **** million U.S. dollars.

In 2024/25, the Golden State Warriors generated the most revenue from the National Basketball Association franchises. Specifically, the Golden State Warriors generated 880 million U.S. dollars in revenue by the end of the season.

As of 2024, the largest luxury tax bill footed by a team in the NBA came in the 2023/24 season, when the Golden State Warriors were taxed 176.9 million U.S. dollars by the league. The Warriors also held the other top-three spots, bringing their overall luxury tax payments from 2021/22 to 2023/24 to 510.9 million U.S. dollars.

In 2018, Antoine Griezmann, football player for Atletico Madrid, was the highest paid French sportsmen with an annual salary which amounted to 33 million euros. Born in Mâcon, Antoine Griezmann won the 2017 Europa League with its club and the 2018 FIFA World Cup with the France national football team. That same year he was considered as one of the most valuable French football players with a market value of 100 million euros.

Basketball players vs Football players

In 2018, the top three best-paid French sportsmen were all football players. Antoine Griezmann was followed by Kylian Mbappé and Paul Pogba, respectively playing in 2018 for Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United. Mbappé, who had an estimated transfer value of 186.5 million euros as of June 2018, earned more than 24 million euros compared to 22.1 million euros for Paul Pogba. But this ranking also shows that French basketball players in the NBA were some of the highest-paid French athletes. Nicolas Batum, currently playing for the Charlotte Hornets, earned more than 20.9 million euros in 2018.

European football on top of the world of sports

Despite the impressive revenue of the NBA, the European football leagues keep having one of the highest revenue in the sports industry. With a revenue of more than 16 billion euros for the season 2018/2019, the “Big Five” of European football remain the financially most successful and probably the most popular sport clubs worldwide. Footballers playing in the big clubs of European football leagues are part of the world’s highest-paid sports teams and players like Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo are some of the most valuable athletes in the world.

Founded in 1996, the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is a professional basketball league composed of 12 teams from the United States. The Golden State Valkyries registered the highest average home attendance across the 2025 season with 18,064. This was an impressive turnout for the Valkyries', with 2025 being the team's inaugural season in the WNBA, validating the league's decision to expand the league in the San Francisco Bay Area. Player salaries in the WNBA Kelsey Mitchell of the Indiana Fever was the highest earner in the WNBA in the 2025 season, with an annual salary of approximately 249,000 U.S. dollars. Meanwhile, looking at the average annual salaries in the WNBA vs. the NBA, the average WNBA player took home around 114,000 U.S. dollars in 2025, which was nearly 100 times lower than the average NBA player salary in the 2024/25 season. WNBA league records Since the opening season in 1997, former and current WNBA players have been setting high standards and surpassing old ones. Sue Bird was the career games leader of the WNBA, having played a remarkable 580 professional games before her retirement in 2022. Meanwhile, the WNBA's all-time scoring leader was Diana Taurasi as of September 2025, who began her career with the Phoenix Mercury in 2004. Recent years have seen high-profile college basketball players also enter the league, such as Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and Paige Bueckers, all of whom have helped in varying degrees in raising the league's viewership.