NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, was paid $44 million for a year’s worth of work starting in 2012 and ending March 2013. This hefty salary puts him among the highest paid executives of not only sports but of all nonprofit companies.
As the league brings in over $10 billion a year it is clear that the funds are there, what is unclear is why the commissioner gets so much of them. This salary is 50 percent higher than his salary for the previous year.
But, according to thebaltimoresun owners Arthur Blank, Robert Kraft, and Jerry Richardson said, “Goodell's compensation reflects our pay-for-performance philosophy and is appropriate given the fact that the NFL under his consistently strong leadership continues to grow."
Although the NFL is considered a nonprofit organization Goodell’s salary still ranks highly when compared to for-profit executive salaries. To put it in perspective, according to nytimes Michael T. Duke, the chief executive of Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer that produces sales of about $470 billion, was paid a salary of $20 million.