It’s no secret that every Super Bowl has a winning team and a losing team. While the winners are publicly showered with confetti, take turns holding the iconic Lombardi trophy and are inevitably awarded the title of “champions” along with flashy Super Bowl rings to prove it, less is publicized about what the losing Super Bowl team gets.
Sure, you may be thinking that making it all the way to football’s biggest night is a win within itself, and while that may be true, it turns out that the losing team gets way more than just bragging rights and the chance to try again next year. In fact, a ring and a pretty large monetary bonus are included.
How much does the losing Super Bowl team get paid?
According to the 2020 NFL and NFLPA Collective Bargaining Agreement, players are entitled to postseason bonuses that are determined by a tiered system. Clubs that make it to a “wild card” game, division playoff game, conference championship and the Super Bowl are all given a monetary amount that coincides with their respective achievement.
In 2025, each player on the losing team that competes at the Super Bowl will receive up to $103,000. There are slight caveats for players who have been on the Active List or Inactive List of a participating team for less than three previous games. In those cases, they will receive half of that amount.
In 2024, members of the losing team took home $96,000 each. The year before that, in 2023, the losing team's players each received $89,000.
Do players on the losing Super Bowl team get rings?
The losing team can still expect to receive a ring — but it’s not a Super Bowl ring. Instead, the team will get rings recognizing them as champions of their respective club’s conference.
Jostens, the company that has created 37 of 57 Super Bowl rings, shared a rare preview of the AFC Championship ring in 2022. It was designed for the Cincinnati Bengals and featured the title “AFC Champions” as well as player name and number. That year, the Bengals lost the Super Bowl to the Los Angeles Rams.
Win or lose, there's no doubt that both teams at the Super Bowl have worked incredibly hard for the chance to take the field. And of course we tuned in to see who took home the title this year!
Cameron (she/her) is a staff writer for Good Housekeeping, where she covers everything from holidays to food. She is a graduate of Syracuse University, where she received a B.A. in magazine journalism. In her spare-time she can be found scrolling TikTok for the latest cleaning hacks and restaurant openings, binge-watching seasons of Project Runway or online shopping.
