Connor McDavid's $100 Million Contract Shows How Little NHL Players Make

National Hockey League players aren't making any money.

OK, that's a bit of stretch—they make a shit load of cash. Most will make more in a year than many human beings will earn in their lifetime, but they make peanuts on the dollar compared to superstars in other major sports.

Connor McDavid, this year's Hart, Art Ross, and Ted Lindsay Award winner, made headlines on Wednesday after inking a contract worth $100 million over eight years, giving the young Oilers captain the highest average annual value (AAV) of any player in the NHL at $12.5 million per season when the extension kicks in following the 2017-18 campaign. Jonathan Toews ($10.5M), Patrick Kane ($10.5M), Carey Price ($10.5M), and Anze Kopitar ($10M) round out the top-five group of highest-earning players in the league, in terms of AAV. The two guys who have matched or exceeded McDavid's talent and star power over the past decade, Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin, earn $8.7 million and $9.5 million, respectively.

Yeah, that's obviously a lot of money. In sports, however, it's best to speak in terms of relatives and comparisons. And, relatively speaking, NHL players are making nothing compared to their counterparts in the Big Four sports.

A polarizing defenceman like Washington's Brooks Orpik, for instance, doesn't suck. He's playing in the NHL and is one of the best 700 hockey players on the planet. But compared to, say, fellow blueliners Erik Karlsson and Brent Burns, you're damn right he sucks. Antti Niemi is an NHL goaltender (albeit barely), which means, in theory, he's one of the top 65-70 puckstoppers in the world. Put him side-by-side to a Carey Price or Sergei Bobrovsky, however, and well, frankly, he sucks, too.

A piece of pizza with pineapple on it isn't so bad if you're starving, but given the choice between that and an untainted, pineapple-less slice of pie—the former becomes an abomination. It's all relative.

The same goes for the potential income of NHL hockey players compared to those in other major North American professional sports like football, baseball, basketball. To use the players we just sewered as a metaphor—NHL salaries are Brooks Orpik, and earning potential in the NFL, NBA, and MLB is Erik Karlsson.

To put it in perspective, here are just a few (there are tons) of the very mediocre to kind-of-good players from the NBA, NFL, and MLB who earn at least the same as McDavid, in terms of AAV, per year.

Joakim Noah, Knicks (NBA): $18.1M
Ian Mahinmi, Wizards (NBA): $16M
DeMarre Carroll, Raptors (NBA): $14.5M
Taj Gibson, Timberwolves (NBA): $14M
Tyrod Taylor, Bills (NFL): $15.3M
Mike Glennon, Bears (NFL): $15M
Francisco Liriano, Blue Jays (MLB): $13M
Melky Cabrera, White Sox (MLB): $14M
Ubaldo Jimenez, Orioles (MLB): $12.5

It's clear that mid-range players in the other major professional leagues easily make more than the best hockey players in the world, like McDavid and Crosby. It's at the top of each league, however, where the disparity is just simply outrageous. These are the top three salaries in football, basketball, baseball, and hockey (note the massive drop-off at the bottom).

Derek Carr, Raiders (NFL): $25M
Andrew Luck, Colts (NFL): $24.5M
Carson Palmer, Cardinals (NFL): $24.4M
Stephen Curry, Warriors (NBA): $40.2M
Blake Griffin, Clippers (NBA): $34.5M
Kyle Lowry, Raptors (NBA): $33.3M
Zack Greinke, Diamondbacks (MLB): $34M
Miguel Cabrera, Tigers (MLB): $31M
David Price, Red Sox (MLB): $31M
McDavid, Oilers (NHL): $12.5M
Toews, Kane, and Price (NHL): $10.5M
Kopitar, Kings (NHL): $10M

In all, 97 MLB players, 92 NBA players, and 57 NFLers currently earn more per year than (arguably) the best hockey player in the world.

Furthermore, Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather Jr. are rumoured to be earning, conservatively, over $100M each for their upcoming bout, more than the amount of McDavid's entire eight-year contract. Five NFL teams, including the Chargers, Ravens, Jets, Saints, and Cowboys are each paying out between $16.25 and $21.84 million to players who aren't even on their roster anymore—much more than the highest annual salary in NHL history just secured by McDavid.

Of course, the disparity in salary averages and ceilings is a simple one to understand. Athlete salaries are set through supply and demand, specifically of their sport. The NFL made over $13 billion in revenue in 2016, resulting in a salary cap of around $167 million for the upcoming season. The NBA is expected to bring in around $8 billion this season, with the salary cap set for $99 million in 2017-18. Major League Baseball, meanwhile, made a record $10 billion in 2016 and doesn't have a cap (teams pay luxury tax once their payroll goes over $195 million for the 2017 season).

Way more people, especially in the United States, watch football, basketball, and baseball over hockey, and you don't have to look much further than each respective league's TV rights deals to see that. The NBA's deal with ESPN, ABC, and TNT is worth a whopping $24 billion, while the NFL and MLB both have agreements worth $27 billion and $12 billion, respectively. The NHL's deal with Rogers in Canada is set at $5.2 billion, while the one it has with NBC on the US side is worth a mere $2 billion.

Though someone of McDavid's calibre would be making roughly $30-plus million per season in any other of the Big Four sports, it's safe to say the 20-year-old phenom won't starve pulling in the highest AAV in NHL history. He'll be able to eat as much pineapple-less pizza as he damn well pleases.