Top 10 Highest-Paid Pro Athletes in North Texas in 2024

To all the Dallas sports-loving parents out there who have spent countless hours and dollars hauling their kids to practices, games and tournaments, take heart: If your kid is lucky and really, really good, the payoff could be huge, especially if they wind up on a World Series-winning team like, say, your Texas Rangers.

How huge, you ask? Spotrac, an online site that describes itself as "the largest online sports team, and player contract resource on the internet," keeps tabs on pro athlete's salaries, and we took a look to come up with a list of the top-earning members of the four major North Texas sports franchises. Because of performance and signing bonuses, salary caps and assorted technicalities, figuring out how much an athlete is compensated can be tricky.

There aren't any major shocks in the Top 10 for folks who follow DFW sports closely. Perhaps the biggest surprise is just how far down the list you must go to get to the highest paid Dallas Star. Miro Heiskanen is bringing in $10 million for this season, and that's only enough to get him to around 20th on the list, tied with Rangers journeyman pitcher David Robertson and behind the Mavericks' sometimes starter Maxi Kleber. For the purposes of this list, we're going with Spotrac's base salaries for each player.

1. Max Scherzer, Rangers, $43,333,334
   
   
2. Luka Doncic, Mavericks, $43,031,941
   
   
3. Jacob deGrom, Rangers, $40,000,000
   
   
4. Kyrie Irving, Mavericks, $40,000,000
   
   
5. Corey Seager, Rangers, $34,500,000
   
   
6. Dak Prescott, Cowboys, $29,000,000
   
   
7. Marcus Semien, Rangers, $26,000,000
   
   
8. CeeDee Lamb, Cowboys, $17,991,000
   
   
9. Tim Hardaway Jr., Mavericks, $16,193,183
   
   
10. Nathan Eovaldi, Rangers, $16,000,000
    
    

It's worth noting that the contract for Scherzer was signed when he joined the New York Mets prior to the 2023 season, only a few months before he was traded to the Rangers. And deGrom went on the injured list in June after only a handful of starts for the Rangers after signing a five-year, $185 million contract in the spring of 2023.

The top of this very ranking will almost certainly change in the next year or so. Some experts have predicted that Luka Doncic's next contract, should he re-sign with the Mavericks in 2025, could be worth as much as $367 million over five years, which would set all kinds of records. There's a reason it is referred to as a "super max contract." Another odd note: the history-making 10-year, $252 million contract that Alex Rodriguez signed with the Rangers in 2000 would still land the disgraced former MVP in the top eight North Texas pro sports annual salaries today. We're not sure what that says about the state of pro sports, or how the Rangers used to be run under former owner Tom Hicks, but we know that it says something.

Since we're speaking in salary terms, pro golfers aren't included on this list, although the Dallas area is now quite the hotbed for some of the world's top professionals. In 2023, the last full season, recent Masters champ Scottie Scheffler earned more than $27 million out on the course, and he's already earned more than $15 million in 2024. Former Masters champ and another noted Dallas resident, Jordan Spieth, brought home more than $8 million just from his playing last year. Of course, each of those pros reportedly rakes in many millions more from endorsements on top of their winnings.

Incidentally, the prize for a winning Saturday Powerball drawing was estimated at $98 million, to be paid out over 30 years, or $45.8 million in immediate cash. The odds of winning, though, are 1 in 292 million. So, maybe don't give up on your kid's sports dreams just yet, especially if he has an arm like a cannon.