Sports Medicine Physician Salary (2026), outlook and how to become one

Sports Medicine Physicians earn a median of $265,930 a year (BLS OEWS, May 2025). That is 422% above the $50,980 median for all US occupations. That works out at $127.85/hr. The middle half earn between $102,930 and $378,770. The top 10% earn $452,360 or more.

The median hourly wage for sports medicine physicians is $127.85 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). On a full-year basis the $265,930 annual median works out to about $22,160 a month before tax.

BLS does not publish a starting salary. The nearest measure is the low end of the pay range: the lowest-paid 10% of sports medicine physicians earn less than $69,170 a year and the bottom quarter less than $102,930 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). New workers often start near that end, but where a particular job starts depends on the employer, the state and the credentials you bring, so read these as the bottom of the range rather than a guaranteed entry wage.

Yes, more often than not. The median is $265,930, so more than half of sports medicine physicians earn over $100,000 a year; even the 25th percentile is $102,930 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). In 51 states the median itself is above $100,000: North Dakota ($454,550), Montana ($438,850), Maine ($419,410), Wisconsin ($391,740), and 47 more.

The highest state medians for Sports Medicine Physicians are North Dakota ($454,550), Montana ($438,850), Maine ($419,410) (BLS OEWS, May 2025).

BLS does not split sports medicine physicians' pay by specialty or employer, but its range shows how far the top end runs: the highest-paid 10% earn more than $452,360, against a median of $265,930 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). Location moves pay the most in the published data: the best-paying states are North Dakota ($454,550), Montana ($438,850), Maine ($419,410).

Yes, and beyond a bachelor's: BLS lists a doctoral or professional degree as the typical entry requirement for Sports Medicine Physicians. BLS also lists internship/residency as typical on-the-job training. In O*NET's survey of people already doing the job, 51.0% hold doctoral degree.

It is stable rather than fast-growing: employment is projected to change 3.4% over 2025–2035, about the same as the 3.5% projected across all occupations (BLS EP, 2025–2035). BLS still projects about 9,400 openings a year, mostly from workers retiring or moving to other work.

Physicians and surgeons diagnose and treat injuries or illnesses and address health maintenance. A core O*NET task: diagnose or treat disorders of the musculoskeletal system. Employers most often ask for Medical software, Office suite software, Spreadsheet software.

Most work more than 40. In O*NET's survey of people in the job, 84% of sports medicine physicians usually work more than 40 hours a week, 16% work exactly 40 and 0% work fewer. 84% say their schedule is regular and 16% irregular. Source: O*NET 31.0 Database, Work Context.

O*NET scores Sports Medicine Physicians highest on the Investigative, Social and Realistic interest areas, so the work mixes investigating, analysing and solving problems with ideas and data with teaching, helping and working directly with other people. On NueCareer's MBTI-to-interest mapping the closest types are ISTJ, ISFJ, ESTJ. Personality is a fit signal, not a gate. The free NueCareer quiz scores your own profile against all 1,731 careers in the bank.

12 months of fellowship after residency. The non-operative path is a 3-year residency in emergency medicine, family medicine, internal medicine or pediatrics, or a 4-year residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation, followed by a 12-month fellowship. The operative path is a 60-month orthopaedic surgery residency followed by a 12-month orthopaedic sports medicine fellowship. BLS puts the general physician timeline at a bachelor's degree, 4 years of medical school, 3 to 9 years of internship and residency, and a fellowship of 1 to 3 years for subspecialisation.

Yes, and it is issued by the state you work in, not nationally. The licence is issued by a state medical board and is for the general, undifferentiated practice of medicine: US physicians are not licensed by specialty, so no state issues a sports medicine licence. What varies by state is the amount of postgraduate training required before a full unrestricted licence, which is one year in most jurisdictions and two or three in some. The Interstate Medical Licensure Compact offers a voluntary expedited pathway rather than a single multistate licence, and as of 31 July 2026 covered 44 member states and 2 US territories across 59 licensing boards, with several states having enacted it but not yet implemented it. Board certification is not required for a state licence, though FSMB notes that practical considerations such as obtaining hospital privileges lead most physicians to obtain it; federal rules at 42 CFR 482.12(a)(7) bar a Medicare-participating hospital from granting or denying privileges solely on the basis of board certification, while still allowing a hospital to require it in its bylaws alongside other criteria.

The Sports Medicine subspecialty certification examination and the Orthopaedic Sports Medicine subspecialty certificate examination. The single subspecialty examination behind the Sports Medicine certificate issued by ABFM, ABEM, ABIM, ABP and ABPMR. ABFM is responsible for examination development, administration, scoring and analysis. Initial certification always requires the traditional examination; the longitudinal Sports-LA option, 17 timed questions each quarter for 204 questions over three to four years, is only available for maintaining certification.

Women make up 41.7% of sports medicine physicians, against 47.1% of all employed people: more men than in the workforce as a whole. 25.1% are 55 or older, close to the 23.2% across all jobs. The median worker is 45.6 years old (all workers: 42.1). Source: BLS Current Population Survey, 2025 annual averages, for the Census group "Other physicians".