The Kansas City Chiefs will face off against the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl for the second time in three years on Sunday.
At the end of the night, only one team will win the Vince Lombardi Trophy, however, players on both teams will earn some extra money for playing.
How much players get paid for playing in the Super Bowl depends on whether their team wins. Per the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement, players on the winning team in Super Bowl 59 will get $171,000 each.
Players on the losing team will get $96,000. This figure is $7,000 more than last year’s Super Bowl bonus, WNEP reported. The platform added that players on the losing team will also make six figures for the first time in 2026.
NFL players who didn’t make the Super Bowl could also earn tens of thousands of dollars besides their salary and this largely depends on how far their team made it in the playoffs.
Below is a breakdown of how much they get for each round:
- Wild Card: $54,500 (Divisional Winner)
- Divisional Round: $54,500
- Conference Championship: $77,000
- Super Bowl losing team: $96,000
- Super Bowl winning team: $171,000
While players earn extra cash just by appearing in Super Bowl, performers earn nothing. Last year, Usher wasn’t paid for his February 11 Super Bowl gig despite grossing more than $12.9 million in ticket sales for his original 14-show run at Caesars. As is the tradition, he performed for free.
Forbes explained that the performing talents benefit in other ways. In 2023, the game garnered 115 million viewers, making it one of the most-watched telecasts in U.S. history.
“The potential marketing value of a halftime performance is astronomical, considering the going rate for a single 30-second commercial during this year’s telecast is reportedly around $7 million,” the business magazine noted last year.
In 2023, after Rihanna’s halftime performance, her digital song sales increased by 390%. Being one of the biggest stages in the world, the benefits artists get from exposure to fans at the show is more than a paycheck.