Players on the Vancouver Warriors active roster have rising salaries based on experience and performance.
The franchise usually offers one or two-year deals. They sometimes lock younger players into longer contracts. Top players are often on one-year contracts at the highest salary level.
The NLL has a salary cap. However, the Halifax franchise can provide extra pay from a discretionary bonus pool. Read on for the details.
How We Calculate Salaries
NLL franchises don’t publish player salaries. However, some details across the league leak out during annual negotiations between the NLL and the players association.
Our calculations are based on salary levels reported in 2018. We’ve adjusted them upwards to represent further gains by the player association since then.
We also know that each club has a CAN$40,630 bonus pool that can be used to pay players more than the league maximum.
The Warriors don’t have to pay out the full CAN$40K. But they must distribute at least CAN$21,670 each season.
How Much Do Players Earn At Vancouver Warriors?
These figures are in Canadian dollars.
Rookies at Vancouver Warriors receive a base contract of about CAN$17K. Their second year brings an increased contract of $20-$28K.
The minimum for veterans is $25K. The maximum base contract for the most valued veterans is $50K.
The average salary across the Warriors’ playing roster is CAN$33,760K.
Apart from the average, the above numbers are rounded to the nearest one thousand dollars. The raw numbers are in the table below.
The figures we’ve listed may seem low for hard-working athletes. But bear in mind that the NLL season is about six months long.
I’ve included the pro-rata monthly equivalent in the table below.
| Status | Annual (CAN$) | Monthly (CAN$) |
| Rookies | 16,949 | 2,825 |
| Second-year minimum | 20,250 | 3,375 |
| Second-year maximum | 27,614 | 4,602 |
| Veteran minimum | 25,180 | 4,197 |
| Veteran maximum | 50,031 | 8,338 |
Franchise Tag Exception
There is one exception where a player’s base contract can be above the maximum we specified above.
Every club can offer what’s known as a franchise tag to one player per season. This comes with a one-year contract of about CAN$62,500 for the season.
To my knowledge, the Vancouver Warriors haven’t applied a franchise tag this season.
This is the summary of all the tiers:
Which Vancouver Warriors Players Are The Top Earners?
Shawn Evans is a seasoned veteran who became a free agent in the summer of 2022. He has twice been awarded MVP in the NLL.
Anyone who thought he must be slowing down at age thirty-six got it wrong. Evans had a storming Mann Cup with the Peterborough Lakers and was key to them taking the title.
There would have been plenty of NLL teams looking to sign him, but the Warriors got their man. We expect that his base contract is at the maximum salary of just over CAN$50K.
We also expect the club used the bonus pool to top up his earnings by an extra two to three thousand dollars.
So, who else is a top earner at the Warriors?
Keegan Bal is another veteran forward who signed a one-year contract before the start of the new season. We expect Keegan to be at the top end of the veteran’s tier.
The forwards reap the glory but they don’t reap all the rewards. Brett Mydske is a key defenseman who is also at the maximum veteran salary.
However, Brett signed a two-year deal in August 2022. With the extra security of a two-year term, we think that the club didn’t have to tip into the bonus pool to retain his signature.
Which Warriors Players Earn The Least?
The Vancouver Warriors grabbed Reid Bowering as the 2nd overall selection in the 2020 draft.
Due to the pandemic, the 2021/22 season was his rookie season. And boy, what a season.
Bowering’s outstanding efforts earned him a nomination for Transition Player Of The Year.
Despite that, his salary was just under CAN$17K.
This season is his second, and his base contract could jump by over $10K. We expect him to be earning about $24K.
Other Employment Inside And Outside The Lacrosse World
NLL players are employed by their franchise for about six months of the year.
They also don’t train full-time during the season. The standard schedule is to travel for training on Thursday evening or Friday morning.
That allows Warriors players to work alongside their playing career. Some work within the sports industry and some work outside it.
Adam Charalambides works for the Vancouver Warriors both on and off the field. When he’s not training or playing, he’s an account executive for the club
Jacob Motiuk works in sales for a lacrosse equipment firm based in Calgary.
Outside world
Connor Goodwin is a senior project manager at an engineering firm in Vancouver.
Keegan Bal is a financial analyst with a real estate company in the same city.
How Do Vancouver Warriors Afford Player Wages?
We have only talked about a few of the players, but there are a lot more.
You can see the current Vancouver Warriors player roster here.
You may be wondering if gate receipts are enough to cover player wages now and in the future.
Fans understandably get worried about whether the franchise owners can withstand financial pressures in uncertain times.
You’ll get the answer in our article on the owners of the Vancouver Warriors.
