How much every Saskatchewan Roughriders player was paid for winning the Grey Cup

Photo: Reuben Polansky/3DownNation. All rights reserved.

Winning a Grey Cup immortalizes you in pro football history, etching your legacy alongside legends on a centuries-old monument to Canadian excellence. It also happens to get you paid.

Playoff compensation is a term that is regularly thrown about during free agency as a reminder that shaving a little off the top to join a contender may actually earn you more in the long run. However, just how much more is rarely specified in those discussions.

While salaries and bonuses vary substantially during the regular season, every player on the active roster or injured list makes the same amount of money in the postseason. That means for the highest-earning CFL players, like starting quarterbacks, playoff money can be less than their regular game cheques. By contrast, it can be a boon for those at the back of the roster, as the cumulative amount received for a Grey Cup run equals roughly a third of the league’s minimum salary.

Each stage of the playoffs is tied to a different dollar figure. For the East and West Semi-Finals, players on participating teams make $3,400. For members of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Calgary Stampeders, this was the extent of their playoff earnings.

Teams that finish first in the division and receive a first-round bye also take home $3,400, plus another $3,600 for participating in the West or East Final. For the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and B.C. Lions, being eliminated in the second round meant $7,000 in additional earnings through the playoffs.

The Grey Cup is where the real money gets made and is the only game in which compensation is determined by the result. Lose in your shot at a CFL title, and you get $8,000 in which to drown your sorrows — more than doubling your earnings for the rest of the playoffs. All told, players who were active or injured for all three games of the Montreal Alouettes’ postseason run made $15,000.

However, to the victor go the spoils, and a Grey Cup win is accompanied by much more than champagne and confetti. Hoisting that coveted chalice earns you a lump sum of $16,000 and a championship ring given free of charge. That is the equivalent of roughly four CFL games on minimum salary.

For the victorious Saskatchewan Roughriders, that meant a total playoff earnings of $23,000 for every player. That’s a substantial windfall for three extra weeks of work, especially considering you get to party at the end of it and may never have to pay for a drink in Regina again.

Postseason compensation is not covered under the salary cap, so teams can rest easy knowing that accomplishing the ultimate goal won’t tank their budget. However, the amount they are required to pay players could be increased in the future, depending on the application of the revenue growth sharing formula in the collective bargaining agreement.

Unless change is forced through before that point, a mandatory increase will occur once defined league revenues reach $300 million. That would see players receive an extra $500 for playoff game, $2,000 for a Grey Cup loss, and $4,000 for a Grey Cup win.