How Much Money Do WWE Wrestlers Make? Minimum Salary For Raw, SmackDown Stars
There’s plenty of money to be made in the world of professional wrestling. Even WWE superstars, who aren’t among the company’s biggest names, earn a salary that’s well into six figures.
Wrestlers who are on the “Monday Night Raw” or “SmackDown” roster make at least $250,000 per year. On WrestleMania 38 weekend, WWE Executive Vice President Paul “Triple H” Levesque told The Athletic that WWE superstars earn a minimum of a quarter of $1 million.
By comparison, the minimum salary for MLB players was $570,500 for the 2021 season. The major-league minimum increased to $700,000 per year with the new collective bargaining agreement in 2022. NFL minimum salaries bumped up from $660,000 to $705,000 from 2021-2022. In the NHL, players make at least $750,000 per season.
The salaries of WWE superstars aren’t reported on in the same way as professional athletes, though it’s well known that company’s top wrestlers earn seven-figure salaries. Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar both make over $5 million per year, according to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer.
Reigns and Lesnar headlined WrestleMania 38 in 2022.
It’s been almost a decade since Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson had an actual WWE match, but he went from the biggest star in wrestling to the biggest star in Hollywood. According to Forbes, The Rock was the highest-paid actor of 2021, raking in an estimated $270 million.
WWE is no longer the only wrestling promotion that is giving stars contracts that are worth well over $1 million per year. Former WWE stars such as Chris Jericho and CM Punk are believed to be making a few million dollars in AEW.
WWE's TV deals with Fox and NBC Universal are reportedly worth a combined $2.35 billion over five years.
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