QUESTION:
Do NFL players get most of the revenue brought in from the league?
ANSWER:
No, President Trump's tweet about this is false.
SOURCES:
NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement, National Football League Players Association
PROCESS:
The official NFL season hasn't returned yet, but that hasn't stopped the the continuation of the controversy surrounding the national anthem protests. The WUSA9 Verify team is checking out the latest claim from President Trump after the first pre-season game on August 9.
As pre-season games started last week, President Trump took to Twitter once again to weigh in on NFL players protesting the national anthem saying this fans pay "sooo much money to enjoy football games and most of that money goes to the players."
But some social media users called Trump out on that claim saying it was incorrect.
Verify researchers took a look at the most recent NFL 10-year collective bargaining agreement from 2011. It states that players are only entitled to 48.5 percent of the league's revenue so the other almost 52 percent of the money goes to the owners. So the amount of money the players take home is less than half the majority the league makes.
And a spokesperson from the National Football League Players Association said that 48.5 percent applies to all league revenue, which includes local revenue, media deals, etc. And this current collective bargaining agreement is in effect through the 2020 season.
So we verified Trump's claim is false, most of the money the NFL makes does not go to players.
The National Football League Players Association told the Verify team the NFL made roughly $14 billion during the 2017 season, which means $6.72 billion went to players from that.