3QUESTION 3 OF 3
Answer & explanation
The official answer, with Fermi’s reasoning step by step.
Answer & explanation
Official answer
5,900,000,000
dollars
How to estimate it
Fermi’s official “Napkin math”
There are 30 teams, and each carries about 15 players. What does an average player make? The stars get $50 million, the bench guys a couple of million. Call it $10 million.
- NBA teams
- 30
- Players per team
- × 15
- Average salary
- × $10,000,000
- 30 × 15 × $10M
- ≈ $4,500,000,000
Rounded assumptions may give a slightly different estimate. The official answer above is the game’s reference value.
Source calculation & reference
- 30 team payrolls, 2025-26, summed (SalarySwish)
- $5.92 billion
- Cross-check: the 10% of salaries held in escrow (NBA, via Sportico)
- ≈ $580M, so ≈ $5.8B in all
- ≈
- $5,900,000,000
Reference cited by Fermi: SalarySwish 2025-26 team payrolls, all 30 teams summed: $5.92 billion
How close was your guess?
Your comparison will appear here.
Compare by ratio: divide the larger number by the smaller one. The closer to 1×, the better.