Do You Know How Much Super Bowl Referees Make?

For many, the Super Bowl is the world's biggest, most important championship sporting event. Of course, that's an American thing, considering soccer is the most popular sport worldwide.

As a matter of fact, according to the Sport of Business website, while the NFL is most popular in the United States, it ranks 10th worldwide. But I digress.

An NFL player's starting salary, as of 2024, is $795,000. Can you imagine? And that's the minimum, with many players signing with a team for much more. This is according to the Pro Football Network website.

Does this mean the referees are making some pretty nice big bucks, too?

According to MSN, there are seven on-field officials during every football game, with an eighth off-field replay official. When it comes to the regular season, they earn around $200,000 to 300,000 a year, which comes out to about $12,000 each game.

Oh, and this doesn't include the Super Bowl. Reffing post-season games, as well as the Super Bowl, is like a bonus for the year in terms of pay.

The NFL has not made any of this public information, but reports suggest that officials receive a bonus of about $4,000 for each postseason game they work. But the Super Bowl is an entirely different animal. Referees selected to work Super Bowl Sunday get a bonus of $30,000 to $50,000.

According to the NFL Operations website, there are 121 officials who have the privilege to call games at the absolute highest level.

Each NFL game has an average of 153 plays. No one officiates forever, so the NFL’s Officiating Development Program continuously strives to develop a robust talent pool to ensure that the next generation of officials is ready to step up when needed.

Each NFL game as an average of 153 plays.