By Weston Blasi
Every player who wins the Super Bowl will get a $171,000 bonus from the NFL. Some stars will also get bonuses from their team of up to an additional. $1.5 million.
The Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles have a lot at stake in Super Bowl LIX. The Chiefs could become the first team in NFL history to win three straight Super Bowls, while the Eagles are looking to win their second title in the last seven years.
The stakes are high for individual players, too. Winning the Super Bowl, which tends to be the most-watched television event of the year, is not only a legacy-building opportunity for players like tight end Travis Kelce and lineman Lane Johnson, but some of them have hefty financial bonuses and pay raises tied to the Super Bowl on Feb. 9 in New Orleans.
This is because player contracts in the NFL – unlike in MLB or the NBA – are not fully guaranteed. So it’s commonplace for some players to try to increase their earnings by negotiating incentives into their contracts. Such incentives can be individual achievements, like hitting a 4,000-yards passing threshold, or be related to how many wins a team gets in a season.
Contract incentives are most common among veteran players because they typically have more negotiating power than younger, more unproven players. And team incentives specifically tend to be more prevalent among top skill-position players like quarterbacks and running backs.
So here are the most lucrative incentives for Chiefs and Eagles players next weekend. Contractual details listed in this story are sourced from sports transaction site Spotrac, unless otherwise stated.
Saquon Barkley
Bonus: $500,000
The Eagles’ star running back has had a historic 2024 season, rushing for 2,005 yards and 13 touchdowns. Through his regular-season work, Barkley has already achieved every single statistical incentive that was reportedly in his contract.
Barkley earned $250,000 after the Eagles won the NFC Championship, and he will stand to make an additional $500,000 if the Eagles win the Super Bowl (half via bonus, and half to be added to his 2025 salary, per NFL.com).
Before accounting for such incentives, Barkley was set to earn $13.5 million in cash, the fourth-highest for running backs in the NFL this season. An Eagles Super Bowl win would see Barkley achieve every incentive for the year, giving him a grand total of $1.5 million in bonus money for the 2024 season.
Among the players participating in Super Bowl LIX, Barkley is one of the few high-profile guys playing in his first Super Bowl, and therefore getting his first crack at Super Bowl and conference-championship bonuses.
Barkley had such a dominant season that only the Buffalo Bills’ Josh Allen and the Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson – both star quarterbacks – have better odds than Barkley of winning the NFL MVP award, according to DraftKings (DKNG). The award has not gone to a running back since 2012.
Jalen Hurts
Bonus: A $500,000 yearly salary bump
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts was one of the highest overall earners in the NFL in 2024, at $42 million in cash.
Hurts also has future earnings tied to a Super Bowl win, but it’s not technically a bonus. The way his earnings work, with a win in Super Bowl LIX, his base salary will increase by $500,000 a year over the next four seasons, totaling $2 million.
To earn the bonus, Hurts would also need to play 70% of the offensive snaps during the Super Bowl, a safe bet unless he were to get injured during the game.
Patrick Mahomes
Bonus: A $1.5 million salary bump
The Chiefs’ legendary quarterback is cementing his legacy not only as a football player, but also as an earner.
Mahomes inked what was then the largest contract in U.S. sports history when he signed a 10-year extension with Kansas City three years ago. His deal was later bested by baseball’s Juan Soto and Shohei Ohtani.
With another NFL title, Mahomes will earn an additional $1.25 million, which will be added to his salary next season.
The Chiefs’ $500 million man has had this clause in his contract since 2020. Mahomes has three Super Bowl victories already, and has made the AFC Championship game every single season since he’s been a full-time starter. Separately, Mahomes also has escalators in his contracts for being named NFL MVP and for winning conference championships.
Other players who could have notable Super Bowl payouts in their contracts include veterans like Kelce or wideout A.J. Brown, but those bonuses have not been publicly reported.
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Excluding Mahomes, who has an annual Super Bowl incentive, there were fewer players who had publicly reported Super Bowl-related bonuses for the Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl last year compared to this year, according to Spotrac. Lack of incentives for some 49ers players could be related to their age, as the team’s skill-position group had several younger players on rookie contracts, like quarterback Brock Purdy and receiver Brandon Aiyuk.
All the aforementioned bonuses were items that players and their agents negotiated with teams to get in their contracts. Separately, the NFL itself gives players additional bonuses for making the playoffs, with payments escalating depending what round the team is eliminated.
The NFL will award each player on the Super Bowl-winning team $171,000, up from $164,000 last season. Each player on the losing team will receive $96,000, up from $89,000, according to the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement.
-Weston Blasi
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01-31-25 0800ET
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