Escrow has been a dirty word for NHL players and agents for years, as player salaries were docked to make NHL accounting work under terms of the CBA. But with league revenue outpacing salaries, the NHL stopped money for escrow in January 2025.
Players will now reap the rewards of the NHL’s 50-50 revenue split system, with players on track to receive roughly $170 million in additional compensation for the 2025-26 season, according to someone familiar with the details. It would be a record payout and represent about 5.5% on top of each player’s salary from last season.
The precise amount going back to players will not be known for several months, as the league finalizes its accounting. The union also holds the right to review the books, but there are not expected to be any big tweaks to the number.
The league’s top earners are the biggest beneficiaries—but they also bear the biggest hit when league revenue comes in light. Edmonton Oilers center Leon Draisaitl had the highest 2025-26 salary of $16.5 million and will receive an additional $910,000 or so. Nathan MacKinnon, Igor Shesterkin, Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and Mikko Rantanen, who all earned at least $15 million, are set for at least $825,000 in their pockets.
“Every platform, every source of revenue is growing,” commissioner Gary Bettman said during his Stanley Cup press conference. “It’s going to be even better next year because the new media deal in Canada kicks in.”
The media deal, worth $11 billion CAD ($7.8 billion based on current exchange rates), is valued at more than twice as much as the just-expired $5.2 billion CAD pact.
NHL revenue for the 2025-26 season was about $6.8 billion, or $7.5 billion using the NHL’s local dollars calculation that combines revenue generated in Canadian and U.S. dollars into one metric. Arenas were filled at 96% capacity during the regular season, and the league had more than 75 corporate sponsors on board.
The NBA, which has a similar system to the NHL, withheld 10% of player salaries in escrow during the 2025-26 season. The NBA’s final accounting resulted in a 55% share of the $580 million in escrow going to owners and the balance to players, who had to forego $317 million in salary. The NFL player compensation model is also tied directly to revenue but does not use an escrow account. MLB owners are pushing for a system in baseball that ties compensation to a percentage of revenue in their next CBA.
NHL players reportedly received smaller additional payouts after the 2024-25 and 2023-24 seasons. Before that, you had to go back more than 10 years for a season when NHL players got money back on top of their salaries. For the 2005-06 season, players received an extra 4.6% in their paychecks, due to surplus revenue in the first year of the salary cap and escrow system. Players also received a slight rebate (0.66%) during the 2007-08 season.
Aside from those outlier seasons, escrow money mostly reverted back to owner, and the COVID-19 pandemic forced the league to send the withholding percentages skyward. The league set the escrow level at 20% during the 2020-21 season to help recoup the $1.5 billion “debt” owed to owners from the revenue shortfall during the 2019-20 season. Escrow was 17% during the 2021-22 season and 10% the year after. It was set at 6% before it was curtailed in January 2025.
Barring something catastrophic, escrow will not be back for the 2026-27 season, but it will eventually return as salaries catch up to revenue with the salary cap set to jump in the coming years. The cap was $88 million for the 2024-25 season but is projected to hit $113.5 million for the 2027-28 season, marking a 28% increase.
Hockey franchise values have soared recently, with the average team worth $2.1 billion in Sportico’s 2025 NHL team valuations—that number is up 108% in three years. By comparison, the three-year change for the NBA is 83%, followed by the NFL at 72% and MLB lagging at 34%.