Patrick Mahomes’ Contract Was The Biggest In The NFL… But He’s 7th Now

He’s one of the biggest names in the NFL and a bona fide champion athlete. It’s little wonder Patrick Mahomes’ contract reflects his value as a franchise quarterback, with his 10-year arrangement with the Kansas City Chiefs the league’s first half-billion-dollar contract.

Mahomes—whose full name is Patrick Lavon Mahomes II—was born in Tyler, Texas, and played football, baseball and basketball in high school. (His father is Pat Mahomes, an MLB pitcher who played for teams like the Boston Red Sox, the New York Mets, the Chicago Cubs and the Texas Rangers.) Though Mahomes went on to play football professionally, his high school football coach told Yahoo Sports in 2020 that pitching and playing basketball only made him better as a quarterback.

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After he graduated high school, Mahomes started college at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. While in college, Mahomes was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in the 2014 MLB draft but did not sign a contract. In college, Mahomes continued to play both football and baseball for Texas Tech, switching between his roles as a quarterback and a pitcher. In 2016, Mahomes announced that he would be taking a break from baseball to focus on football. A year later, in January 2017, Mahomes revealed that he decided to forgo his final year at Texas Tech to enter the NFL draft and play football professionally.

In the 2017 NFL draft, Mahomes was selected as a quarterback by the Kansas City Chiefs. Not too long later, Mahomes signed a four-year contract with the Chiefs and played his first game on the team in December 2017. Mahomes made his first Super Bowl appearance at the Super Bowl LIV in 2020, where the Kanas City Chiefs played against the San Francisco 49ers. At the game, which was the Chiefs’ first Super Bowl appearance since 1970, Mahomes led his team to victory and was named that year’s Super Bowl MVP. (He is the youngest quarterback and third-youngest player in NFL history to earn the award.)

Eyes were all on Mahomes again at the 2021 Super Bowl, where the Kansas City Chiefs faced off against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and its star quarterback, Tom Brady, who held the record for the most Super Bowl appearances and wins in NFL history. Here’s everything we know about Patrick Mahomes’ contract.

Patrick Mahomes’ contract

NFL Network reported in July 2020 that Patrick Mahomes’ contract was a 10-year deal with the Chiefs for $503 million. The agreement, which Mahomes’ agents confirmed to Steinberg Sports, promises Mahomes $477 million in guarantee mechanisms, as well as allows him to have outs if the guarantee mechanisms aren’t exercised, according to NFL Network. The contract, which doesn’t include a trade clause, is the first half-billion-dollar player deal in sports history, according to Steinberg Sports.

NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero also shared a breakdown of Mahomes’ Chief’s contract, which earns him various base salaries and roster bonuses for the next 10 years. The contract also has a $10 million signing bonus. According to the reporter, Mahomes was set to earn $103 million by March 2021.

According to Sportrac, Mahomes ranks first in contract value in the NFL above the Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, who ranks at number two; the Denver Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson, who ranks at number three; the Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray, who ranks at number four; and the Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson, who ranks at number five.

Patrick Mahomes’ net worth

Given his stadium-sized Chiefs salary, NFL fans across the country want to know what Patrick Mahomes’ net worth is. According to Celebrity Net Worth, Patrick Mahomes’ net worth is $50 million, with $40 million earned each year.

In an interview with CBS Sports in 2020, Mahomes opened up about the deal and making history with the first half-billion-dollar sports contract. “The best thing that happened was the Chiefs and my team, we went in with an open mind,” he said. “We tried to figure out what was not only best for me and my family, but also what was best for the team moving forward. In order to build something great, you have to have that open-minded communication.”

Mahomes went on to tell CBS Sports that he doesn’t think the money will change him. “My dad texted me a couple days after the contract: ‘Do you feel any different,’” he recalled. “I said I feel exactly the same. I’m going to be the same person I was before I got the contract and before I got to the NFL—to be the best Patrick Mahomes I can be every single day.”

In an interview with CNBC in 2021, Mahomes confessed that he never thought he’d be a professional NFL player and instead thought he’d be an MLB player like his father, Pat Mahomes. “Ever since I can remember, I was playing something. I didn’t think I would be a football player, but I thought I would be a professional athlete for sure … a baseball or basketball player,” he said.

He responded to critics who think his multi-million-dollar contract isn’t deserved. “People see me on the field playing and winning a lot of football games, and [they see] the contract and the different businesses that I work with, and they think that everything I’m doing is kind of just working out,” Mahomes said. “[But] I think defeat helps you more than success,” he adds. “I just do whatever I can to be better and learn from the mistakes.”

Mahomes also told CNBC about his game-day mindset and how he views each game one at a time. “Love the game that you’re playing and leave everything you have on that field because you’ve put in that work and that time with the guys that you’re playing with,” he said. “You want to make sure that you’re giving everything that you have every single time that you’re out there. Because you never know — it could be your last. They usually change rosters pretty drastically every single year, so you want to make sure that you’re enjoying every single moment that you have those guys on the team.”

He also told the site about how he learns from his defeat and each mistake he makes. “When you lose on a football field or if you invest in a company that doesn’t work out, or whatever it is, I think that helps you out more because it drives you to learn from your mistakes,” he said. “It drives you to be better the next time. I just continue to try to make myself better. I think that’s been the biggest thing that I’ve done my entire life: No matter the success or the failure that I have the previous season, I just try to continue to make myself better every single day. That’s all you can do. If you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse. I know it sounds cliche, but it’s true.”

He also told CNBC about how, instead of focusing on multiple things, he focuses on just what he can handle. “When you’re out there on the field, there are so many things going on. You have to focus on just a [few] things because your brain can only handle so much,” he said. “So no matter what the situation is, you have to make sure that you’re focused on the five to six things that can help impact the play in the best way possible. I feel like the score of the game, a lot of times, isn’t one of those things you can focus on. All you can focus on is having a successful play of that play. And then once that plays over, no matter if it was good or bad, you have to do it again.”

As for where he wants to be in 10 years, Mahomes told CNBC that he hopes he will still be playing football and is a “great” father to his children, daughter Sterling Skye Mahomes and son Patrick “Bronze” Lavone Mahomes III with his wife, Brittany Matthews. “Hopefully, I’m still playing football, first of all, and that I’ve gotten better. I’ve gotten better on the field and off the field. That I’m a great family man but also a great football player. I want to be the best family man, football player, businessman that I can be, and hopefully make a great impact in this world,” he said.

In October 2023, Mahomes joined a group of investors backing F1 team Alpine, including fellow Chiefs player Travis Kelce, and champion golfer Rory McIlroy. The group is led by private investment firm Otro Capital, which announced a $211 million investment in Alpine F1 in June 2023, along with other investors including actor Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.

“Everybody can see the appeal. I’ve been able to get to a couple of races now. Seeing the environment and then obviously watching Drive To Survive on Netflix; you see how competitive it is,” Mahomes told reporters at the time. “I’m competitive as anyone can get so hopefully, it can open up to some great opportunities and we’ll be able to go to some of those races and have a little steak in the game.”

According to Sportrac, Mahomes did rank first in contract value in the NFL above the Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, Denver Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson, Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray, and the Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson, but he slipped to seventh-highest paid in 2023.

“I’ve always said I worry about legacy and winning rings more than making money at this moment,” he said, per ESPN. “We see what’s going on around the league, but at the same time, I’ll never do anything that’s going to hurt us from keeping the great players around me. So it’s kind of teetering around that line.”

He continued: “You just want to do whatever to not hurt other quarterbacks [financially],” Mahomes said. “Whenever their contracts come up, you want to keep the bar pushing [higher].

When It Was Just a Game: Remembering the First Super Bowl

For more about the Super Bowl, football fans can check out When It Was Just a Game: Remembering the First Super Bowl by Harvey Frommer. The best-selling book delves into the history of the first Super Bowl, which was originally known as the AFL-NFL Championship Game. (The term “Super Bowl” was coined only in its third year.) The debut game, between the winning Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs, was played in front of only 61,946 people at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum—an audience well below the stadium’s capacity. Harvey Frommer, a sports historian and reporter, puts the tale of that momentous game together using oral history, gathered by hundreds of interviews with players, coaches, media and spectators alike.

Remembering The First Super Bowl

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