Sports Medicine Physician Salary (2026): What Sports Medicine Doctors Earn, by Training Path

Two kinds of sports medicine doctor

Primary care (non-surgical) sports medicine

Most sports medicine physicians are non-surgical. They complete a residency in family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, emergency medicine or physical medicine and rehabilitation, then a one-year sports medicine fellowship. Passing the sports medicine exam earns a certificate of added qualification (CAQ). The exam is administered by the American Board of Family Medicine and co-sponsored by the emergency medicine, pediatrics and PM&R boards. Family medicine is the most common route: a 2015 study in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine found 2,061 board-certified family physicians (2.4%) held the sports medicine CAQ.

Their work is non-operative musculoskeletal care: acute injuries, overuse problems, concussion, joint and tendon injections (often ultrasound-guided), fracture care that doesn't need surgery, and team and event coverage. Many keep part of their original practice, such as primary care clinic or emergency department shifts.

Orthopedic sports medicine surgery

Orthopedic sports surgeons complete a five-year orthopedic surgery residency, then a sports medicine fellowship, and treat injuries such as ligament tears and shoulder instability with arthroscopic and open surgery. Their pay follows orthopedic surgery, which averaged $696,852 in Doximity's 2026 report; our orthopedic surgeon salary guide covers it in full. The rest of this guide is about non-surgical sports medicine unless it says otherwise.

Sports medicine doctor salary by source

The two non-surgical figures differ by $55,000, and both are SalaryDr's. The $375,000 median comes from physicians who listed sports medicine as their specialty, from an older and smaller sample; the $320,000 figure comes from family physicians who listed sports medicine as their focus, and is more recent. SalaryDr doesn't say how much primary care each group does, so the gap may reflect practice mix as much as timing. Treat $320,000 to $375,000 as the realistic range for a non-surgical job, with orthopedic sports surgery about $375,000 higher.

The major surveys don't help here. Doximity's and Medscape's 2026 reports have no sports medicine row. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts sports medicine physicians under their base occupation, such as family medicine. MGMA and AMGA do benchmark non-surgical sports medicine, but their tables are sold to employers and not published; our guide to MGMA salary data explains how employers use them, and you can ask a recruiter which percentile an offer represents. The American Medical Society for Sports Medicine does not publish a public compensation figure. Older MGMA numbers quoted on other websites date from before 2022 and mix surgeons with non-surgeons, so we left them out.

Starting salary and experienced sports medicine pay

No large survey publishes a verified starting salary for sports medicine physicians, so we don't quote one. SalaryDr's family medicine sports medicine reports give a sense of the curve: an average of $320,000 for physicians three to five years into practice and $360,000 at 11 to 15 years, a 12.5% difference. The samples are small, so treat the direction as more reliable than the exact figures.

How sports medicine physicians are paid

• Base plus wRVU bonus. Employed sports medicine physicians usually get a base salary with a work RVU bonus, like other office-based physicians. Our wRVU guide explains the formulas.
• Procedures raise production. Office visits for injuries earn modest wRVUs. Joint and tendon injections, ultrasound-guided procedures and non-operative fracture care earn more, and some practices add regenerative injections that patients pay for in cash. Whether the employer supplies an ultrasound machine and procedure time matters to your pay.
• Referrals have value. In an orthopedic group, a non-surgical sports physician sees patients first and refers the ones who need surgery to the surgeons, and imaging and therapy follow. That downstream revenue goes to the group, which is worth knowing when you negotiate (see below).
• Mixed practices. Many sports medicine physicians split time with family medicine clinic or emergency department shifts. Their pay reflects both, which is part of why sports medicine pay figures vary so much.

Sports medicine pay by setting

No public source we could verify breaks non-surgical sports medicine pay down by setting, so this section describes how settings differ rather than quoting figures for each.

• Orthopedic groups. Private and hospital-owned orthopedic practices hire non-surgical sports physicians to see injuries and triage surgical cases. Pay tends to follow musculoskeletal production, and partnership may be available.
• Hospital and health-system sports medicine programs. Health systems run sports medicine clinics and hold team contracts with schools and professional teams. Pay is usually salary plus wRVU bonus, and team coverage is part of the job.
• Academic and university athletics. University-employed team physicians care for college athletes and teach fellows. Academic pay is usually lower, but nonprofit and public universities qualify for PSLF.
• Primary care with a sports focus. Family physicians who add sports medicine to a primary care practice earn closer to the $320,000 figure.

Is a sports medicine fellowship worth it financially?

The fellowship year is paid at a fellow's stipend instead of an attending's salary in your residency specialty. The answer depends on which specialty you start from, because sports medicine pays more than some of them and less than others. The table uses SalaryDr medians for every specialty so the figures come from one source, and both sports medicine figures ($320,000 and $375,000).

• Family medicine and pediatrics. At the family-medicine sports median, the year takes 12.7 years to earn back; at $375,000, about 3.3 years. The financial case rests on getting a job in an orthopedic or dedicated sports practice rather than adding sports to a primary care panel.
• Emergency medicine and PM&R. Both already pay more than either sports medicine median, so a full-time sports job lowers expected pay. An emergency physician gives up about $213,777 in take-home pay for the fellowship year and, at the $375,000 median, earns about $15,030 a year less after tax than at the emergency medicine median. Emergency physicians who keep working shifts alongside sports medicine avoid most of that.
• Internal medicine. The year pays back only at the higher sports figure.

Our guide to whether a fellowship is worth it runs the same comparison for 20 internal medicine and pediatric fellowships, with discounting and PSLF.

Sports medicine physician take-home pay by state

State-level sports medicine pay data is too thin to report. What you keep is predictable:

At the $375,000 median, a sports medicine physician keeps about $35,658 more a year in Texas than in California. Our take-home pay guide covers every state.

Hours, lifestyle and pay per hour

SalaryDr's sports medicine physicians report an average of 46 hours a week (15 reports). At the $375,000 median, that is about $157 an hour, against about $135 for family medicine (43 hours at a $300,813 median). The schedule is seasonal: weekday clinic plus evening and weekend game coverage during school sports seasons, and travel for physicians who cover college or professional teams.

The sports medicine fellowship match

Programs fill almost every position while roughly one applicant in four goes unmatched, so the fellowship is in demand from the trainee side. That doesn't mean the job market pays a premium: with many qualified applicants, sports medicine pay stays close to the residency specialties it comes from, as the figures above show.

Student loans and PSLF for sports medicine physicians

The AAMC's median education debt for indebted 2025 graduates is $215,000. Paid over 10 years at 6.5%, that is about $2,441 a month, or 12.9% of a Texas take-home at the $320,000 family-medicine sports median.

The four years of residency and fellowship count toward PSLF if you make qualifying payments while working for a nonprofit or public employer, and university athletics departments and nonprofit health systems usually qualify. Orthopedic groups owned by physicians don't. Our PSLF guide and physician student loan guide compare forgiveness with refinancing.

Negotiating a sports medicine offer

1. Team and event coverage. Which teams, how many events, and whether coverage is paid as a stipend, counted toward productivity or expected for free.
2. Procedure support. Access to ultrasound, procedure time and staff, and whether injections count toward your wRVUs.
3. Practice mix. What share of your time is sports medicine versus primary care or emergency shifts, and how each is paid.
4. Ancillary revenue. In orthopedic groups, whether imaging, bracing or therapy revenue reaches non-surgical physicians, and whether partnership is open to them.
5. Non-compete. Sports medicine competes locally for the same schools and teams; check the radius and length (our non-compete guide).

Use our contract analyzer to compare offers and our salary negotiation guide before you reply.

Sources

1. SalaryDr: sports medicine physician salaries (15 reports through April 2025; hours), family medicine sports medicine salaries (17 reports through August 2026; experience averages) and orthopedic sports medicine surgeon salaries (19 reports). Self-reported; accessed October 27, 2026.
2. Doximity Physician Compensation Report 2026 (2025 data).
3. 2026 Sports Medicine Match Results Statistics, National Resident Matching Program.
4. Sports medicine certificate of added qualification among family physicians, Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 2015.
5. American Medical Society for Sports Medicine membership criteria (eligible primary specialties).
6. AAMC 2025 Survey of Resident/Fellow Stipends and Benefits (PGY-4 $77,593, PGY-5 $81,807), as tabulated in our resident salary guide; AAMC median education debt, class of 2025.