AFL players might not earn the kind of enormous salaries many other professional sportspeople are fortunate enough to receive, but they still do pretty well for themselves. The top players in the league are able to earn well in excess of $1 million in the modern-day game, so just who was the highest-paid AFL player in 2020?
Jeremy Cameron
Last year, star forward Jeremy Cameron earned the prestigious title of the highest-paid player in the AFL courtesy of a back-ended contract which saw him slated to earn around $1.5 million throughout the course of the year. Of course, as was the case with every player, that number was reduced somewhat as a result of the disrupted AFL season, but nonetheless, he reeled in over $1 million. As it turned out, that would be his final year with the GWS Giants and his performance didn’t exactly justify the paycheck, but given his prodigious ability, it’s no surprise to see him up the top of this list.
Lance Franklin
Lance Franklin and the Sydney Swans turned the landscape of player payments in the AFL on its head when the club offered the superstar forward a nine-year deal worth $10 million in 2013 — easily the biggest in the game’s history. He accepted, and the back-ended nature of that contract meant that in 2020, his annual salary sat at around $1.4 million. Injuries prevented Buddy from playing a single game throughout the entire year, perhaps a tough pill to swallow for the Swans, but he has established himself as one of the club’s — and the game’s — greatest ever players over the course of the nine-year deal, so the contract has been justified in the eyes of many.
Nat Fyfe
Fremantle midfielder Nat Fyfe is one of the league’s most decorated players, having won the Brownlow Medal twice, been selected as the All-Australian captain in 2019, and captained his own club since 2017, so it’s little surprise that he is one of the AFL’s highest-paid players. Fyfe signed a huge six-year contract reportedly worth around $7 million back in 2017, a couple of years after his first Brownlow and a couple of years prior to his second. That contract saw him earn over $1.2 million in 2020 alone — not a bad haul for the man from Lake Grace.
Dustin Martin
Martin has spent the last few years seemingly accumulating every piece of silverware available in the AFL, so some would argue that Richmond got off lightly by paying him around $1.2 million last year. Dusty famously signed a seven-year deal for the Tigers worth around $9 million dollars at the end of 2017, having just led his side to its first Premiership in 37 years in the same year that he won both the Brownlow and the Norm Smith Medals – the only person to ever do so in the same season. He was reportedly offered a much bigger deal with North Melbourne, but having won another two more flags — and being favorite to win another according to 2021 AFL Premiership odds – as well as two more Norm Smith Medals with Richmond since, he’s probably pretty happy with the decision.
For the most part, the players sitting just below this top group are stars of the competition, the likes Patrick Dangerfield, Marcus Bontempelli, and Jeremy McGovern, while Carlton’s Jack Martin is probably a surprise addition to the group earning in excess of $1 million per season. They might not be the kind of numbers stars of major American and European sports earn, but it’s hard to imagine any of these guys are complaining.
