Odell Beckham Jr
New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. carries the ball against the Tennessee Titans during the second half of a game in Nashville, Tennessee, last season. Reuters/Don McPeak/USA Today Sports

Stating that American pro football has more of a risk of injury than other sports, New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. says that National Football League players need to get paid more compared to players in other professional leagues.

In a Huffington Post interview, Beckham stated that he wants to see NFL players earn more compared to their counterparts in the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and National Hockey League.

“I think that we should make more money, personally. I understand that basketball plays 80-something games, baseball plays this many games, soccer plays that many games, but this is a sport where there’s more injuries,” Beckham said in the article. “There’s more collisions. It’s not even a full-contact sport, I would call it a full-collision sport. You have people running who can run 20 miles per hour and they’re running downhill to hit you, and you’re running 18 miles per hour. That’s a car wreck. It’s just the career is shorter. There’s injuries that you have after you leave the game, brain injuries, whatever it is, nerve injuries.”

NBA and NHL teams play 82 regular-season games and MLB teams play 162 regular-season games per season. NFL teams, meanwhile, play 16 regular-season games.

In a separate Forbes report, also linked from the Beckham interview, it is stated that the NFL has the lowest average salary for all players, at $2 million, and the lowest minimum salary at $405,000. The NBA has the highest average salary at $4.9 million, with a minimum salary of $490,180, MLB has an average salary of $3.82 million and a minimum salary of $500,000, and the NHL has an average salary of $2.58 million with a minimum salary of $550,000.

Beckham also said in the interview that he believes that paying NFL players “up front” would be an ideal solution because their future is at risk. He added that while the NFL has more players per team compared to the other leagues, there would be a way to “balance” the pay.

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