Professional athletes can make a great deal of money playing sports, especially when they are the star of their team. The average salary of a NBA player is $5.15 million a year and in the NFL the average salary is $1.9 million. Some salaries can reach heights of up to $300M (Floyd Mayweather)! Becoming a pro athlete is extremely difficult and there is only about 5000 professional athletes in the US that have worked their way up from their childhood. Many believe that these salaries are way too high for just playing a sport, but these athletes deserve the high pay because they have heavy sacrifices, can help society, and pull in tons of revenue.