The Kansas City Chiefs were the talk of the 2023 NFL season with Taylor Swift in the stands and the team winning a second straight Super Bowl. The buzz and title were a boon to the bank accounts of the Chiefs’ two biggest stars.
Patrick Mahomes earned $3.6 million in group licensing and marketing income during the 12 months through February, according to the NFL Players Association’s annual report filed this week with the U.S. Department of Labor. The tally led NFL players and was up 53% from the prior year, when the Chiefs also won the Super Bowl.
The licensing income of Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce, soared 177% to $2.4 million and ranked fourth among NFL players, behind Mahomes and quarterbacks Jalen Hurts ($2.7 million) and Josh Allen ($2.5 million).
The earnings are from all group licensing deals, which include those for multiple players negotiated through the NFLPA, such as video games, jerseys and trading cards. Players get paid royalties based on sales of items like jerseys.
Almost every NFL player received at least $32,000 from the PA.
In addition to the PA royalty check, Mahomes earns more than $20 million a year from his nearly 20 endorsement partners, including Adidas, Coors Light, State Farm and Subway. Last year, he added BOSS, T-Mobile and Walmart. His latest venture is a “good-for-you” coffee brand, Throne Coffee, that launched two weeks ago and has Mahomes as the second-largest investor.
Many of the listings in the LM-2 report show LLCs that are registered to players—Kelce is TMK Enterprises LLC and Mahomes is 2PM LLC. Most of them are easily decipherable or identifiable from corporate records, but Sportico was unable to pin down the players who ranked fifth and sixth, which are shown as MMBOC LLC ($2.3 million) and SACC 1of1 LLC ($2.2 million).
It is not just the current players cashing in from group licensing. Peyton Manning ranked seventh overall at $2.1 million, double his previous year’s earnings. Rob Gronkowski finished 10th at $1.9 million, a tick behind Joe Burrow.
Tom Brady has regularly been the top earner from licensing, including $9.5 million and $6.8 million the past two years, but T.E.B. Capital Management received a fraction of its previous year payouts with just $651,938.
The stars of the San Francisco 49ers also benefited from their run to the Super Bowl. Running back Christian McCaffrey earned $1.7 million—over three times more than in the previous year when he was traded midseason from Carolina—and ranked 12th overall. Quarterback Brock Purdy pocketed $710,619, 10 times what he made the prior year and 82% of the $870,000 salary for Mr. Irrelevant from the 2022 NFL Draft. Tight end George Kittle made $1.6 million.
Aaron Rodgers lasted only four snaps of the regular season with the New York Jets before he tore his Achilles tendon, but fans still gobbled up his merchandise, netting the four-time MVP $1.6 million. T.J. Watt ($808,103) outearned his brother J.J. ($743,849) by a narrow margin, while the Diggs brothers had Stefon ($562,774) over Trevon ($467,754).
Twenty-two players received at least $1 million in royalties, with Aidan Hutchinson missing the seven-figure mark by just $7,680. Twenty players made at least $1 million during the 2022 season, led by Brady.
