How the figures are made

Every money figure on this site carries one of three labels. The rules below hold for every sport; after them, the method for each sport.

The three labels

• Reported A named outlet published the figure. We show the outlet, the date and the link for every source; a figure with one source says single source; when sources disagree we show the range and all of them.
• Prize money Money an athlete won in competition, as published in the official results of the organiser or federation, shown as paid out (gross) with the source.
• Estimate Nobody published the figure, so we estimate it with a method that is public for that sport. An estimate is always labelled and always shown with a range; it is never presented as a fact.

Rules for every sport

• Reported and official first. A published or official figure always replaces our estimate.
• Salaries are net by default (what the athlete receives). A figure published as gross is converted with an approximate national tax factor and marked converted from gross. Prize money is shown gross, as paid out.
• Currencies. Other currencies are converted to euros at approximate rates for comparison; the original amount is always shown next to it.
• Not salaries. Offers, buyouts, bonuses promised and rumours can be listed next to an athlete's figures, but never count as the salary.
• Weak sources. A figure whose only source is a low-reliability outlet (for example a betting-affiliate blog) is shown as an estimate with a range, not as reported.
• Paywalls and lists. We use free pages only, and we do not republish any outlet's list: each figure appears on the athlete's page with a link to where it was published.
• AI answers are never a source. Every figure comes from a page that was opened and read.
• Minors. Athletes under 18 get no money figure, reported, official or estimated.
• Updates. We do not scrape other sites. New data arrives as a reviewed update, the site is rebuilt from it, and the change is logged in the changelog. See a figure that is wrong? Send a correction.

Basketball

Salaries of EuroLeague players, 2025-26 and 2026-27, plus reported salaries in France and Israel and club budgets in 18 more leagues. Basketball pages · accuracy tests · salary ranges by player type.

Reported salaries

Figures that name a player, a club and a season, from newspapers, sports sites and podcasts. When several outlets report the same player-season we take the median of the strongest figures. Gross figures are converted with Spain ×0.53, Italy ×0.56, France ×0.60, Germany ×0.55, Greece ×0.56, Türkiye ×0.65 and similar factors. US-dollar figures use one rate per season (1.08 / 1.16 / 1.17 USD per EUR for 2024-25 / 2025-26 / 2026-27); monthly figures are multiplied by 12, and a multi-year total is divided by its years when the years are stated.

Estimates for everyone else

Most EuroLeague salaries are never published. For those players we start from the club's net player payroll as published by the press (the BasketNews tracker first, Gazzetta where it adds a club) and share it out within the roster:

salary_i = residual payroll × w_i / Σ w_j,   w = exp(β · x)

• Residual payroll. When some salaries at a club are reported, only what is left (payroll minus the reported salaries) is shared among the players without a figure. This is more accurate than sharing the whole payroll (median error 21.4–22.8% against 28.8%). If the reported salaries already add up to nearly the whole payroll, each remaining player keeps at least half of his blind share.
• What x contains. Minutes per game, share of games played and started, PIR per game, the previous season's PIR and minutes, whether he played in the EuroLeague the year before, age (and age²), whether he is a local player, a local aged 24 or younger, or American.
• How β is fitted. Ordinary least squares on log salary with a fixed effect per club-season, on the 15 club-seasons where reported salaries cover at least 90% of minutes (2024-25 MCO, 2024-25 OLY, 2024-25 PAN, 2024-25 ZAL, 2025-26 HTA, 2025-26 MCO, 2025-26 OLY, 2025-26 PAN, 2025-26 PRS, 2025-26 TEL, 2025-26 ZAL, 2026-27 HTA, 2026-27 OLY, 2026-27 PAN, 2026-27 TEL).
• The range. We show the point value and ±30%, the model's typical error. Estimates are rounded (to €10k below €1M, €50k above).

What the β say, in short: more minutes and a higher PIR (this season and last) mean a bigger share; at the same minutes and PIR an older player earns more (reputation, earlier contracts), up to the mid-thirties; and at the same output, local players and Americans earn somewhat less than other foreigners.

Club budgets and payrolls

For EuroLeague clubs, the net payroll comes from the press trackers and, where a league publishes it, from official filings (LNB in France, BBL in Germany). Other leagues come from official league tables, club accounts and shareholder meetings, and press reports. When outlets disagree we show every figure and lead with a range; tags say what a figure covers (plan or actual, first team only, gross club cost, one funding source only …).

Where the model is weak

• Young local players are overestimated.
• Stars at clubs with no published salaries are underestimated, by about 17–25%.
• Players on old contracts who broke out later look underpaid to the model (their salary was set before the breakout).
• Clubs whose payroll the press disagrees on (Panathinaikos and Hapoel Tel Aviv 2026-27) carry that uncertainty into every estimate.
• 2026-27 stats are a EuroLeague snapshot (31 Oct 2026), about nine rounds.

Numbers for all of this are on the basketball validation page. The salary ranges by player type are context, not the estimate.

Cycling

Pro cycling salaries, contracts and agents are published on our sister site How to Turn Pro, with its own methodology. Its figures are not copied here.