Shed no tears for Shedeur Sanders and his 2025 draft-day free fall.
The recent LM-2 filed by the NFL Players Association reveals that Sanders, through his SS2 Legendary LLC, received more than $17.7 million from the NFLPA from May 2025 through February 2026.
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The number was first reported by Daniel Kaplan in an item for Front Office Sports. Per Kaplan, that figure shatters the prior one-year record of $9.5 million, held by Tom Brady.
PFT has confirmed the number, which appears in the union’s voluminous annual federal filing.
The document reflects thirteen different payments for “royalties/player marketing” to SS2 Legendary, totaling $17,712,015. The biggest payment was made on May 16, 2025, in the amount of $9,241,318. The second-largest payment — $2,086,563 — was made on January 23, 2026.
Most player royalty through the NFLPA come from group licensing deals, which compensate players for jersey sales, trading cards, video games, and other collectibles. As one source suggested, the $9.24 million payment to Sanders in May 2025 may have reflected his individual trading-card guarantee — something that likely would have been negotiated before he slipped from round one to round five in the 2025 draft.
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Regardless, the $17.7 million Sanders made in royalties for one year dwarfs the total, four-year value of his rookie contract ($4.647 million). The payment also exceeds the full four-year contract signed by Packers receiver Matthew Golden ($17.575 million), the 23rd pick in round one last year.
Sanders could have a large payment in next year’s LM-2, too. In March, Sanders changed his number from 12 to 2; any jerseys that fueled his royalty payments for his first NFL season will need to be replaced.
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