Professional sports Professional sports , as opposed to amateur sports , are sport s in which athletes receive payment for their performance . Professional athleticism has come to the fore through a combination of developments . Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences , so that sports organizations or teams can command large incomes . Professional sport is perhaps the only activity that defies the commercial norm whereby the media expect to be paid for carrying publicity for non - media organizations ; in professional sport they are expected to pay for the privilege of doing so . As a result , more sportspeople can afford to make athleticism their primary career , devoting the training time necessary to increase skills , physical condition , and experience to modern levels of achievement . This proficiency has also helped boost the popularity of sports . Most sports played professionally also have amateur players far outnumbering the professionals . Professional athleticism is seen by some as a contradiction of the central ethos of sport , competition performed for its own sake and pure enjoyment , rather than as a means of earning a living . Consequently , many organisations and commentators have resisted the growth of professional athleticism , saying that it was so incredible that it has impeded the development of sport . For example , rugby union was for many years a part - time sport engaged in by amateurs , and English cricket has allegedly suffered in quality because of a " non - professional " approach . Sports salaries . People involved in professional sports can earn a great deal of money at the highest levels . For instance , the highest - paid team in professional baseball is New York Yankees . Tiger Woods is the highest paid athlete totaling $ 127 , 902 , 706 including his endorsement income , which massively exceeds what he earns from tournament golf . Woods recently became the world ' s first athlete to earn a billion dollars from prize money and endorsements . It would have taken the salary of 2 , 000 1980s professional golfers each making $ 58 , 500 to match up with Tiger Woods ’ current salary . Samuel Eto ' o is the world ' s second highest earning athlete and the highest paid footballer in the world , raking in £35 . 7 million ( over $ 54 million ) a year excluding off - field earnings . The top ten tennis players make about $ 3 million a year on average . Much of the growth in income for sports and athletes has come from broadcasting rights ; for example , the most recent television contract for the NFL is valued at nearly US $ 5 billion per year . Outside of the highest leagues , however , the money professional athletes can earn drops dramatically , as fan bases are generally smaller and television revenues are nonexistent . For instance , while the National Football League ' s teams can afford to pay their players millions of dollars each year and still maintain a significant profit , the second - highest American football league in the United States , the United Football League , has consistently struggled to pay its bills and has continually lost money despite allotting its players only US $ 20 , 000 a year . In the United States and Canada , most lower - end professional leagues run themselves as affiliated farm team s , effectively agreeing to develop younger players for eventual play in the major leagues in exchange for subsidizing those players ' salaries ; this is known as the minor league system and is most prevalent in professional baseball and professional ice hockey . American football . In the NFL average salaries by position in 2009 were : Baseball . In 1970 , the average salary in Major League Baseball in the U . S . and Canada was $ 20 , 000 ( $ inflation - adjusted ) . By 2005 , the average salary had shot up to $ 2 , 632 , 655 ( $ inflation - adjusted ) and the minimum salary was $ 316 , 000 ( adjusted : $ ) . In 2012 the average MLB salary was $ 3 , 440 , 000 , the median salary was $ 1 , 075 , 000 , and the minimum salary had grown to four times the inflation - adjusted average salary in 1970 ( $ 480 , 000 ) . Basketball . Each sport has the highly paid players , but calculation of the average yearly salary has shown that the highest paying sport is the National Basketball Association ( NBA ) . With the NBA having the smallest rosters of the four major professional sports leagues , and playing over a relatively long schedule with significant television revenue , a large pool of money can be divided among a relatively small pool of players . On average , basketball players in the NBA make over 5 million dollars each year . For the period May 2012 - May 2011 , Kobe Bryant was the highest paid NBA player totaling $ 25 , 244 , 000 in salary , and was the world ' s third highest earning athlete earning $ 53 million . During that period Samuel Eto ' o , earned $ 54 million and the world ' s highest earning athlete was Tiger Woods , earning $ 75 million . 20 years ago , the average basketball salary was $ 575 , 000 ; now , the average is $ 5 , 200 , 000 , an 804 % increase .