When NFL players get fined, where does the money go?

When Dallas Cowboys tight end Peyton Hendershot scored his second-career touchdown on Thanksgiving Day, he decided to celebrate with his friends. Fellow tight ends Dalton Schultz, Jake Ferguson, and Sean McKeon raced to the back of the end zone at AT&T Stadium and jumped into an oversized Salvation Army kettle, bobbing up and down while Hendershot bopped them on the head for a quick game of Whac-A-Mole.

Last week, the NFL fined the players for the celebration.

No Fun League, indeed.

The fines reportedly totaled $27,094, with veteran Dalton Schultz taking the biggest hit ($13,261) while McKeon, Ferguson, and Hendershot were fined $4,994, $4,895, and $3,944, respectively. It was all part of a big week of fines in the NFL, as 24 offenses in Week 12 alone totaled more than $230,000 in fines, according to spotrac.

It makes one wonder: Where does all that money go?

In 2020, the NFL and the NFL Players Association entered a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, a contract that extends through 2030. According to the CBA, money collected from fines does not go to the NFL, but is instead donated to charities such as the Gene Upshaw Player Assistance Trust, which helps former players who are facing financial hardship and those who wish to return to school to earn their college degrees, and the NFL Player Care Foundation, which assists former players with medical, emotional, financial, social, and community issues. The league says that since 2011, it has donated more than $4 million a year in collected fines toward assisting former players.

Other professional leagues have similar policies. When an NBA player is fined, the money goes to a charity determined by either the NBA or the NBPA Foundation. Major League Baseball donates player fines to various charities, as well as programs that help former players in financial need, while the NHL dedicates all collected fines to the NHL Players Emergency Assistance Fund.

The NFL is on pace for a record disciplinary year in 2022. At more than $14.5 million in fines and suspensions levied through just 12 weeks, the league has nearly doubled its 2021 total of $7.13 million. This is largely due to Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson’s $5 million fine—coupled with $632,500 in lost wages from his 11-game suspension—for conduct detrimental to the league, stemming from sexual misconduct accusations. The largest fine ever levied by the league was not against a player, but a team, when it fined the Washington Football Team $10 million in 2021 for promoting a hostile workplace environment.

The rest of the fine schedule is made up of offenses ranging from off-field transgressions, such as performance-enhancing drug policy violations, to on-field behavior, such as fighting ($37,233 for first offense), late hits ($10,609 for first offense), and taunting, which netted Denver Broncos linebacker Jonathan Cooper one of the smallest fines of the season thus far ($4,723) in Week 1.

As part of the CBA, player fines will increase annually by 3%. So a cumulative fine of $27,094 for a game of “Whac-a-Mole” today would be a $34,321 hit in 2030—which, if you ask the Cowboys’s tight ends room, might still be worth it.

A founding editor of The Players’ Tribune, Paul Mueller is a freelance writer and content strategist based in Florida.