It takes a massive crew of people to pull off an NBA game. We all know about the players and coaches, the athletic trainers and medical staff. But there are also the official scorers, the in-arena announcers, the DJ, the crews who entertain during stoppages of play, the ushers and food vendors, security, the folks who make sure the players have clean jerseys and socks.

That is to say, the game operations crew in an NBA arena is an enormous group of people without whom none of us would get to enjoy the sport we love.

Among the most visible of the game ops crew are the NBA floor cleaners — those young people who fly up to frantically mop, wipe and dry the floor anytime a player falls, keeping it dry and as slip free as possible.

How much do NBA floor cleaners make?

Several websites list, without a source, salaries in the range of $60,000 to $90,000 depending on qualifications and experience. If that feels like a shockingly high number to you, you're not alone.

It's not clear how much data their analysis is based on, but Zip Recruiter lists this job at an hourly rate that probably seems much more realistic.

"As of Sep 7, 2023, the average hourly pay for a Basketball Floor Cleaner in the United States is $15.58 an hour. While ZipRecruiter is seeing hourly wages as high as $20.67 and as low as $11.54, the majority of Basketball Floor Cleaner wages currently range between $14.42 (25th percentile) to $17.31 (75th percentile) across the United States."

At the time of this writing, there were no floor cleaning jobs listed on TeamWorkOnline, a recruiting website where most professional sports organizations in the US use for hiring. However, there are several opportunities to join the Game Operations crew for different teams and perhaps work your way up to holding a mop.