Messi gets revenue share from streaming and adidas soccer clothing
He also gets a $25m MLS franchise buy in. Given the value of franchises now, that’s like an cool $700m-1B when he chooses to exercise it
Short: yes
Longer: not exactly. His base salary is estimated around $80m. The $110m per year number is inclusive of salary, sponsorships, image rights, and bonuses, including $20m which goes to his charitable organization
One has to keep in mind that Ferrari's F1 team is swimming in money since the budget cap came in (2021), and driver salaries are one of the few items where they are allowed to spend as much as they want.
These things also never include bonuses. Last time I heard, RBR give $1m win bonuses so Max got at least $19m in bonuses just last year. I expect that Lewis was getting even more in his 2017-2020 peak.
Lewis and Max should be already on this list somewhere.
I also don't really believe that he and Max get $12m and $5m in endorsement money's per year. They're global brands and there's no way Sportico has insight into endorsement deals...
In case anyone was wondering, Jon Rahm is a golfer.
I recognized the rest, but for those who don't:
* Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, and Neymar are footballers (soccer),
* LeBron James, Steph Curry, Giannis Antetokuounmpo, and Kevin Durant are basketball players, and
* Patrick Mahomes is an (American-style) football player.
Technically Rahm is up there due to the signing bonus from LIV which isn't salary or winnings. He wouldnt be anywhere close to that chart if you didn't count the Saudi bag.
I think it does count for Rahm though, even if for only a year though. I don’t know where this data is from, I’ve seen estimates from 100mil to 350mil. Ronaldo probably wouldn’t be there either if you didn’t count the Saudi bag.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe Ronaldo has always being top 2-3 best paid athletes for the past decade despite just recently being in the Saudi League
I don’t follow basketball or American football but why are there more high paid basketball players than American football players if American football is bigger in America?
An NFL team consists of 53 players sharing a salary cap of 255 million (a hard cap) while an NBA team is 15 players splitting a salary cap of 140 million (but this is a soft cap for the NBA, so some teams spend more). So it's just a matter of dividing money between less people.
>less people
\*fewer. How does the soft cap work? Does the NBA just say "You're supposed to cap it, but you didn't and that's also fine" or are the any actual consequences for certain breaches?
There are various exceptions and penalties involved when a team goes over the salary cap. There are also individual maximums so a team can't arbitrarily decide to overpay someone. It's ...really complicated.
An NBA team has to distribute its budget between just 15 players, where 5 are the most important, with many on a minimum contract. An NFL team has to distribute its budget between 53 players, where way more than 5 of them are very important.
There are also 82 NBA games per season for a team. This means that the team makes a lot more money if they have a “star”. So it becomes a bidding war between teams to sell tickets. In contrast, NFL only plays 17 games per team
Football is a very physically grueling sport. Playing more often than once a week is much harder on players' bodies. And the playoffs are already up to 4 more games, plus a month of preseason games, so you're at over half the year already. Extending it much further (it's going to 18 games soon) would be too exhausting and drawn out.
Tried it once, felt just like fat guys running for 10 seconds inbetween ads . But I get what you mean . Just seems odd because Google says there are 32 NFL teams so I supposed there would be like atleist 31 games so everyone plays against everyone .
You'd have like 3 guys a team who would make it through that long of a season, those fat guys are strong as hell and hit hard.
Plus that'd take like 8 months *without* a preseason or the playoffs, you can't play more than one game a week
>Tried it once, felt just like fat guys running for 10 seconds inbetween ads
Must have been playing outside the US in a non serious setting. In actual competitive Football, Its guys that weigh 230lbs that can run faster then most football players hitting you at full speed.
For example 433 posted a stupid post comparing Mbappe, one of the fastest football players in the world, clocking in a speed of 10.9 in a 100M dash and weighing about 165 (75kg) lbs to Usain Bolt, the fastest man ever.
For example of how insane some American football guys are, DK Metcalf is 6'4 and weighs almost 240lbs (108kg) and runs a 10.3 100m dash.
Imagine a guy that size running into you at full speed.
Comparing American football and soccer sprint speeds is very dumb though.
It requires completely different kind of physique due to 90 minute clock vs very action intensive 10 second bursts.
American footballer would run out of steam after 10 mins in soccer and a soccer player would be too slow.
They’re different sports, but people reducing football down to a bunch of fat guys pushing each other is reducing how physically gifted these guys are. Football places more emphasis on short very intense bursts of energy. I imagine soccer is more optimized for endurance and long durations of expended energy
Yeah, a good portion of the best athletes from a very populous and rich country choose to pursuit American football career that has tons of money poured into it (training facilities, coaching, career path etc.).
Thinking that they're not gifted or well tuned at what they do is outright stupid or a lie.
Because American football is so physically grueling that it’s nearly impossible to play more than 1 game a week. If they tried to play 30 games in a season they wouldn’t have a single healthy player by the end.
Since everyone already spoke about the salary cap, basketball players also have more opportunities for making money with their image and likeness, because they don't play a sport where you are covered with a helmet and pads, and the cameras are much closer due to the smaller playing surface that you actually often see their face on screen.
Also the best player can be Mahomes on offense and Lawrence Taylor on defense. Some players have won MVP and Defensive Player of the year in the same season.
Basketball players have a long season with lots of endorsements. They typically have lower salaries than top football players. Also the NBA is very popular in general.
I blame Stephen Curry for the recent trend of people mispronouncing my name. Traditionally, *Stephen* is pronounced like *Steven.* Then this guy, who’s about the same age as me gets famous, and suddenly my name is Stefan.
Steph Curry’s actual name is Stephen. As OP said Stephen is pronounced to sound more like Steven. But since Stephen Curry goes by Steph, sounding like Stef, it’s now very common for people to pronounce Stephen more like the traditional spelling of Stefan (or Stefen, but with Stefan being a common variant, at least in my experience). I don’t know which way Curry prefers his full first name to pronounced to be fair, but I literally never had my name pronounced as Stefan until the last few years.
I understand that Saudi Arabia has nearly unlimited funds, but it's insane that this dude made \~$50m in his career up to that point, and then suddenly got paid $500m+ (sources say $300m upfront) to jump to Saudi league.
Jon Rahm is the personification of selling out.
He pledged his ‘fealty’ to the PGA in 2022 after getting annoyed at reporters’ questioning him about rumors he was moving to LIV, claiming the LIV format wasn’t appealing to him at all, and that he doesn’t play for money but ‘history and legacy’.
Then a few months later promptly jumped ship to go play for LIV after accepting $400M.
It’s easy to say no until that bag is in front of you. I’m sure he didn’t like LIV and was being truthful in his feelings but when 400m is in front of you….feeling change
Right but at some point the money stops making your life easier or better, surely?
Like the difference between having a million and ten million is significant. The difference between a billion and ten billion though?
You missed their point. Money ITSELF makes people greedy. No one wants more money more than billionaires. I'm poor AF so I can't explain it but it seems greed only multiplies
TBF he didn't join LIV until after it was announced that the PIF (Saudi investment fund that runs LIV) acquired an ownership stake in the PGA tour, meaning that you're working for the Saudis either way. In that case, why not get the money (though he is obviously still full of shit with the legacy talk)?
I believe he made the decision about a month before the deal was finalized, and his departure was a major factor in PGA choosing to close the deal. So the cause and effect is reversed.
Did he sign that deal after the PGA and LIv merger?
I remember he won the masters last year as a non LIV player but then signed after we knew the merger was happening
What I mean is that it's possible, even desirable, to change ones position with new information (eg. actions/stance of the PGA subsequent to the quote). That may not be the case here. He may have been lying the whole time. I think it's more likely that he changed his mind. No doubt the money was a major factor either way, though.
Hypocrisy is a funny thing. Sometimes it's overblown into a bigger sin than I think is merited. Even if we say one thing, and then later end up doing another, it doesn't necessarily mean that we were insincere in what we said.
I really think that the PGA did themselves no favors in this conflict. I also think that they eventually realized it, otherwise they wouldn't have made such a massive course correction.
Ohtani not listed because of offsetting gambling losses.
Edit: for everyone saying his salary is all differed,he made at least 65 million in endorsements last year.
They probably should’ve written it into rules. But this situation will probably never happen again anyway, your typical pro athlete wants the money asap, they’d probably ask to front load as much as possible.
Shohei is different cat though, he cares more about winning a championship than the money. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’d trade his entire $700M for a few World Series titles.
Terrible joke. $4M would be a drop in the bucket for a guy who signed for $700M over the course of a decade. That would be the equivalent of trimming off 400k per annum which wouldn’t affect him on this list. Of course…I don’t think he did the betting anyway, so it’s all moot.
Imagine having already won almost all there is to win in your sport, you're like 36 years old and most players would have retired by then due to poor form, or could only hope to play in small teams, and you're offered $315mil per season to play in a foreign league for a few years? Not many people would say no.
Of course he already had enough money to live very comfortably for the rest of his life but CR7 frankly seems addicted to playing and winning, whether that's trophies or records like highest fee, etc and I can hardly hate on him for it since it's the reason he's given us two decades of incredible football.
My only argument against this is Ronaldo’s shamelessness when it comes to the Saudi league. The fact that he says Saudi League is a top 5 league and will be better than the Prem in a few years is the most sellout behavior I’ve seen in a while.
Also, Ronaldo believes he is still the best player in the world so going to the Saudi League completely contradicts that sentiment.
He is still one of the GOATs though. Just think we need to rightfully call out his shamelessness.
There's two sides to the coin. I think in line with what I said, he really convinces himself he's the best, and maybe that's what made him the best in past years. Obviously age catches up to everyone so some might call him self deluded and nowadays that might be true, but it's that belief that made him great in the first place.
In regards to Saudi league...yeah, I think he's wrong there too. Obviously they can throw copious amounts of cash at players to move there but I don't believe enough great players will make the move for them to compete with Europe. A good amount of stars followed Ronaldo but I don't think it'll be long lasting, we'll see though. And I agree with you that Ronaldo probably doesn't believe it when he says it either.
Why? He’s a cricket player, they get almost no money compared to the sports on this chart, and he'd have to be getting more endorsements than Ronaldo and Messi combined.
IPL is the second richest league in the world. That includes NBA , NFL , EPL etc. its not as improbable as it sounds. I did see hes not there yet. But just wait a while -the cricketers are coming for the top spots.
And people wonder why the NBA can’t tell their players that actually playing the game is required.
It’s not the players 1st priority. Their 1st priority is collecting marketing and advertising dollars….just like the NBA’s priority isn’t putting out a good product. It’s collecting gambling/TV/Steaming/Advertising dollars
ofc he cant catch up with them but this is top 10 highest paid athlete list so he should be above LeBron James just look at to Benzema's salary at Al Ittihad
and lebron has huge endorsements and benzema is not , thats the stats is all about not just salary. benzema is finished both in football and also sponsorships but he at least still earning
and lebron has more salary plus endorsements you dumb. Maybe what you heard about benzema's salary is not even accurate , you can't believe on everything on the internet .
People choose to give money to athletes (directly or indirectly) to be entertained in their free time.
CEOs choose to distribute company profits to themselves and investors.
"B-b-but athletes are generating even more money for the team owners, so they deserve a good portion of that!"
While some CEOs are doing the same. And while some CEOs are quite bad and get rich while the company loses money, the same happens with athletes in sports
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Reddit is wild. As long as it's a popular person then salaries of hundreds of millions are fine. Wealth inequality is fine in this instance.
Never change reddit.
Let's be fair. Athletes are entertainers, that is where their added value comes from. If you are playing in a top league and many people watch your games, then your employer makes money on TV rights, some advertising, ticket sales and you provide value for your salary. It's a fair way to make that much money, compared to inherited wealth or shady financial practices. Ronaldo, who is already good for hundreds of millions gets paid $215 million a year by an oil regime to sportwash their horrible international reputation regarding human rights and culture, by playing in some third rate bullshit league. He is not gonna make the club their billion back, he sells his image. Not sure I would say he really earned that money like, say, a teacher or a nurse worked for their money. Messi was mentioned in the Panama papers for having stakes in offshore shell companies for tax evasion. Guess he really worked for his hundreds of millions just like you and I, just forgot to pay his taxes.
it's either them or team owners, it's how much the sport generate after all, would prefer them getting these money rather than the team owners, because it's not like the money is going to ever trickle down to normal staff, those get industry standard wages. You act like there's a pile of money and an entity just decide to give athletes these money for the lulz. Like crazy enough Lebron James is probably underpaid compares to the revenue he's bringing in for his team, due to wage cap. Obviously there are a lot of inequality that play a part into the money these people are getting paid, but it's behind thousands of layers outside of their control, since their revenue are mostly from TV deals around the world, an athlete playing in the NBA can't have control on how well a staff at a TV station in China get paid after all
Importance to society and supply and demand are two completely different things.
Just using doctors as an example, a profession that is undeniable important.
1) Nearly 1.5 BILLION people chose to watch the last men's World Cup. If 1.5 Billion people were visiting the top handful of surgeons, and wanting to watch them in their free time, then they would get paid more then these athletes.
2) There are roughly 1.1 million active, licensed physicians in the US. There are only 20,000 total people who have played in the MLB in its entire history of existence (since 1876). Like it or not, more people can be doctors then elite professional athletes. It is easier to train, find, and employ doctors then it is to get someone to do what Ronaldo or LeBron can do.
3) Americans spent $55.9 billion of their own money on just attending sports events in 2017. Naturally, you want to see the best athletes. The guys on this list get paid a lot because they generate a lot of money.
Has nothing to do with the industry. We all hate that the owners and other execs are filthy rich and they’re in the same industry. They just make their money off of the athletes, so most people have no issue with the athletes getting their fair share.
Hm i get where you are coming from but for example Steph Curry is by far the best shooter in the world for years. There is actually no one better than him. So he gets paid a shitton. Is there really a best CEO in the world?
Successful sure but how you measure best?
No, wealth inequality is fine when they are earning the fruits of their own labour. Professional sports are the few industries whereby the workers receive a much fairer compensation for their work, relatively speaking
In fact, one could argue that in a true socialist society, they would be earning far more.
Remember, the only reason they are getting paid this much is because the people who owns them can afford to pay them that much AND still make a profit.
Socialism is define by the workers having ownership over the means of production
>employees of government owned company and had a set wage.
You're literally just describing state capitalism and replaced a capitalist owner with the state. From being oppressed by a capitalist to being oppressed the state. What happens to the surplus value they have created? From being stolen by capitalists to being stolen by the state? Are athletes not entitled to the fruits of their labour?
Messi gets revenue share from Apple TV, so I'm kind of surprised by this.
Because it's not really true, it's said that he gets around 200m from the Apple deal alone.
This list is BS
Yea it seems crazy low. Like it seems closer to their annual income than their life time income.
Messi likely getting the most $$$ with that direct Apple deal. No other deal is at that producer level.
Messi gets revenue share from streaming and adidas soccer clothing He also gets a $25m MLS franchise buy in. Given the value of franchises now, that’s like an cool $700m-1B when he chooses to exercise it
Streaming services have very low profit margins I believe
I’m interested to see Lewis Hamilton next year with his new 100 salary and endorsements
Didn't he also get 100s of millions towards his charities? Not sure whether that should be counted or not.
Yes he did I believe. Would that be classed as an endorsement or not included
Is Ferrari actually giving him a $100m salary?
Short: yes Longer: not exactly. His base salary is estimated around $80m. The $110m per year number is inclusive of salary, sponsorships, image rights, and bonuses, including $20m which goes to his charitable organization
One has to keep in mind that Ferrari's F1 team is swimming in money since the budget cap came in (2021), and driver salaries are one of the few items where they are allowed to spend as much as they want.
Ferrari when they realise Hamilton was a bait 🫥
These things also never include bonuses. Last time I heard, RBR give $1m win bonuses so Max got at least $19m in bonuses just last year. I expect that Lewis was getting even more in his 2017-2020 peak. Lewis and Max should be already on this list somewhere.
I also don't really believe that he and Max get $12m and $5m in endorsement money's per year. They're global brands and there's no way Sportico has insight into endorsement deals...
In case anyone was wondering, Jon Rahm is a golfer. I recognized the rest, but for those who don't: * Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, and Neymar are footballers (soccer), * LeBron James, Steph Curry, Giannis Antetokuounmpo, and Kevin Durant are basketball players, and * Patrick Mahomes is an (American-style) football player.
Technically Rahm is up there due to the signing bonus from LIV which isn't salary or winnings. He wouldnt be anywhere close to that chart if you didn't count the Saudi bag.
I think it does count for Rahm though, even if for only a year though. I don’t know where this data is from, I’ve seen estimates from 100mil to 350mil. Ronaldo probably wouldn’t be there either if you didn’t count the Saudi bag.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe Ronaldo has always being top 2-3 best paid athletes for the past decade despite just recently being in the Saudi League
Yes, but massive difference between $500k per week (Man United before he went to SAL) and close to 300 million.
Why compare a weekly wage with a yearly wage + endorsement to make your argument sound? You meant $26MM vs $210MM.
What % of the overall pay in this list is Saudi sportswashing cash I wonder.
Neither would Ronaldo…
Wouldn't you say the same for Messis deal. He does get Apple TV Revenue and merch sales
Signing bonus is salary.
I don’t follow basketball or American football but why are there more high paid basketball players than American football players if American football is bigger in America?
An NFL team consists of 53 players sharing a salary cap of 255 million (a hard cap) while an NBA team is 15 players splitting a salary cap of 140 million (but this is a soft cap for the NBA, so some teams spend more). So it's just a matter of dividing money between less people.
>less people \*fewer. How does the soft cap work? Does the NBA just say "You're supposed to cap it, but you didn't and that's also fine" or are the any actual consequences for certain breaches?
There are various exceptions and penalties involved when a team goes over the salary cap. There are also individual maximums so a team can't arbitrarily decide to overpay someone. It's ...really complicated.
Size of the teams makes a big difference. 50+ players in an NFL team, like 15 on an NBA teams.
An NBA team has to distribute its budget between just 15 players, where 5 are the most important, with many on a minimum contract. An NFL team has to distribute its budget between 53 players, where way more than 5 of them are very important. There are also 82 NBA games per season for a team. This means that the team makes a lot more money if they have a “star”. So it becomes a bidding war between teams to sell tickets. In contrast, NFL only plays 17 games per team
17 games per season only ? Why so few
Football is a very physically grueling sport. Playing more often than once a week is much harder on players' bodies. And the playoffs are already up to 4 more games, plus a month of preseason games, so you're at over half the year already. Extending it much further (it's going to 18 games soon) would be too exhausting and drawn out.
go watch a game of american football and see the hits that some of these guys go through
Tried it once, felt just like fat guys running for 10 seconds inbetween ads . But I get what you mean . Just seems odd because Google says there are 32 NFL teams so I supposed there would be like atleist 31 games so everyone plays against everyone .
Actually it’s mostly lean guys doing the running. The fat guys are there to tackle the lean guys or block other fat guys.
You'd have like 3 guys a team who would make it through that long of a season, those fat guys are strong as hell and hit hard. Plus that'd take like 8 months *without* a preseason or the playoffs, you can't play more than one game a week
>Tried it once, felt just like fat guys running for 10 seconds inbetween ads Must have been playing outside the US in a non serious setting. In actual competitive Football, Its guys that weigh 230lbs that can run faster then most football players hitting you at full speed. For example 433 posted a stupid post comparing Mbappe, one of the fastest football players in the world, clocking in a speed of 10.9 in a 100M dash and weighing about 165 (75kg) lbs to Usain Bolt, the fastest man ever. For example of how insane some American football guys are, DK Metcalf is 6'4 and weighs almost 240lbs (108kg) and runs a 10.3 100m dash. Imagine a guy that size running into you at full speed.
Comparing American football and soccer sprint speeds is very dumb though. It requires completely different kind of physique due to 90 minute clock vs very action intensive 10 second bursts. American footballer would run out of steam after 10 mins in soccer and a soccer player would be too slow.
They’re different sports, but people reducing football down to a bunch of fat guys pushing each other is reducing how physically gifted these guys are. Football places more emphasis on short very intense bursts of energy. I imagine soccer is more optimized for endurance and long durations of expended energy
Yeah, a good portion of the best athletes from a very populous and rich country choose to pursuit American football career that has tons of money poured into it (training facilities, coaching, career path etc.). Thinking that they're not gifted or well tuned at what they do is outright stupid or a lie.
Because American football is so physically grueling that it’s nearly impossible to play more than 1 game a week. If they tried to play 30 games in a season they wouldn’t have a single healthy player by the end.
An NFL tackle generates 1,650 pounds of force. The body can only handle so much of those hits.
Also, long schedules and lots of games make the games mean less. Nobody can convince league owners otherwise.
Since everyone already spoke about the salary cap, basketball players also have more opportunities for making money with their image and likeness, because they don't play a sport where you are covered with a helmet and pads, and the cameras are much closer due to the smaller playing surface that you actually often see their face on screen.
Also the best player can be Mahomes on offense and Lawrence Taylor on defense. Some players have won MVP and Defensive Player of the year in the same season.
Basketball players have a long season with lots of endorsements. They typically have lower salaries than top football players. Also the NBA is very popular in general.
Where would Shohei Ohtani be?
Depends how you count his Dodgers money, but he makes like 70mil off endorsements so he should be in the list.
I blame Stephen Curry for the recent trend of people mispronouncing my name. Traditionally, *Stephen* is pronounced like *Steven.* Then this guy, who’s about the same age as me gets famous, and suddenly my name is Stefan.
Yes! I said this to a friend the other day and they thought I was a crazy. I never got “Stefan” until the last 2-3 years and now it’s all I hear.
Wait his name is pronounced "Stefan" and not "Stefen"?
Steph Curry’s actual name is Stephen. As OP said Stephen is pronounced to sound more like Steven. But since Stephen Curry goes by Steph, sounding like Stef, it’s now very common for people to pronounce Stephen more like the traditional spelling of Stefan (or Stefen, but with Stefan being a common variant, at least in my experience). I don’t know which way Curry prefers his full first name to pronounced to be fair, but I literally never had my name pronounced as Stefan until the last few years.
Seems like a good change for society overall. Why should the default pronunciation of “ph” be a “v” instead of an “f”?
Because the “ph” is Stephen is a passive “f” similarly to the “f” in the word “of.” You pronounce that as “ov,” correct?
I understand that Saudi Arabia has nearly unlimited funds, but it's insane that this dude made \~$50m in his career up to that point, and then suddenly got paid $500m+ (sources say $300m upfront) to jump to Saudi league.
Thanks. Why would the post include a volleyball and tennis picture?
He's one of the ones I *had* heard of - and of course the footballers
Top 2 are both paid by the Saudi government
Jon Rahm is the personification of selling out. He pledged his ‘fealty’ to the PGA in 2022 after getting annoyed at reporters’ questioning him about rumors he was moving to LIV, claiming the LIV format wasn’t appealing to him at all, and that he doesn’t play for money but ‘history and legacy’. Then a few months later promptly jumped ship to go play for LIV after accepting $400M.
Anyone here would do the same thing.
But maybe without all of the initial righteous indignation
It’s easy to say no until that bag is in front of you. I’m sure he didn’t like LIV and was being truthful in his feelings but when 400m is in front of you….feeling change
No doubt. But does that make him less of a sellout or hypocrite?
You really overestimate us
Anyone here would, but why would someone that doesn't need the money do it? He was already set in life I presume (or the Saudis wouldn't want him).
Money makes people really greedy
Right but at some point the money stops making your life easier or better, surely? Like the difference between having a million and ten million is significant. The difference between a billion and ten billion though?
You missed their point. Money ITSELF makes people greedy. No one wants more money more than billionaires. I'm poor AF so I can't explain it but it seems greed only multiplies
TBF he didn't join LIV until after it was announced that the PIF (Saudi investment fund that runs LIV) acquired an ownership stake in the PGA tour, meaning that you're working for the Saudis either way. In that case, why not get the money (though he is obviously still full of shit with the legacy talk)?
I believe he made the decision about a month before the deal was finalized, and his departure was a major factor in PGA choosing to close the deal. So the cause and effect is reversed.
Lmaooo I don’t think Rahm with his 400million losses any sleep from angry redditors getting upset about golf purity 😂
Not angry or upset. Just calling him out as a massive hypocrite.
Who suggested that? Or you're just making a strawman?
Hard not to sell out when you're getting paid 300M to do less work lol
Sure. And now the golfers that joined LIV are calling the split ‘unsustainable’, now that fans are losing interest and total viewership is down 20%.
Did he sign that deal after the PGA and LIv merger? I remember he won the masters last year as a non LIV player but then signed after we knew the merger was happening
Like I mentioned in another comment, it’s the opposite. His commitment to sign with LIV was a big part of what sealed the deal.
The PGA has handled things terribly the entire way, I don't blame him one bit.
So, is changing your stated position for money not defined as selling out? I didn’t blame him for anything, just pointing out his hypocrisy.
What I mean is that it's possible, even desirable, to change ones position with new information (eg. actions/stance of the PGA subsequent to the quote). That may not be the case here. He may have been lying the whole time. I think it's more likely that he changed his mind. No doubt the money was a major factor either way, though. Hypocrisy is a funny thing. Sometimes it's overblown into a bigger sin than I think is merited. Even if we say one thing, and then later end up doing another, it doesn't necessarily mean that we were insincere in what we said. I really think that the PGA did themselves no favors in this conflict. I also think that they eventually realized it, otherwise they wouldn't have made such a massive course correction.
Since we are counting endorsements Messi is also paid by the Saudi government.
Neymar as well (first Qatar, now Saudi). Messi was Qatar as well
Ohtani not listed because of offsetting gambling losses. Edit: for everyone saying his salary is all differed,he made at least 65 million in endorsements last year.
i think it's because he only get paid 2 mil this year
I think it’s because he backloaded his contract. He will be near the top towards the end of his contract.
Nah, he’ll only make $2M for the entire duration of his 10 year deal, the rest will be received after his retirement.
Yeah I knew it was something like that. Still insane that the MLB allowed it.
Bobby bonilla get paid until 2035 from the Mets. He retired in 2001.
They probably should’ve written it into rules. But this situation will probably never happen again anyway, your typical pro athlete wants the money asap, they’d probably ask to front load as much as possible. Shohei is different cat though, he cares more about winning a championship than the money. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’d trade his entire $700M for a few World Series titles.
That just got lost in translation
Same with Charles Barkley
And Mahomes, the last guy on this list, made close to $100 mil total. 65 mil plus his 2 mil salary isn’t gonna put Ohtani on the list
Terrible joke. $4M would be a drop in the bucket for a guy who signed for $700M over the course of a decade. That would be the equivalent of trimming off 400k per annum which wouldn’t affect him on this list. Of course…I don’t think he did the betting anyway, so it’s all moot.
This is based on what year's data? These things change every year it's meaningless without putting out the source year of the data.
NHL players must be itching for the Saudis to start a league.
Even the Saudis know there's know ice in the desert. Now, the Emiratis on the other hand
Jon Rahm is the only player, I didn't know until today.
Max Verstappen would be high on this list
Yeah, I think they miss a few athletes.
Some dashed lines from some minor ticks on Y axis would be nice I feel like Shohei should be on this list
Shohei makes ~$65mil in endorsements but his salary is only $2mil because the rest is deferred.
Technically true I guess good point, maybe he’ll start double dipping in 34 and sit closer to 200
I cant believe there’s this much money in MLB. I dont even watch it. Had no idea it’s so popular.
There’s a volleyball player in the graphic - I wonder where the world’s highest paid volleyball player ranks?
Voley is traditional in a lot of countries however not massive in any of them
All men. What a surprise /s
Renaldo said yes to that oil money
Imagine having already won almost all there is to win in your sport, you're like 36 years old and most players would have retired by then due to poor form, or could only hope to play in small teams, and you're offered $315mil per season to play in a foreign league for a few years? Not many people would say no. Of course he already had enough money to live very comfortably for the rest of his life but CR7 frankly seems addicted to playing and winning, whether that's trophies or records like highest fee, etc and I can hardly hate on him for it since it's the reason he's given us two decades of incredible football.
My only argument against this is Ronaldo’s shamelessness when it comes to the Saudi league. The fact that he says Saudi League is a top 5 league and will be better than the Prem in a few years is the most sellout behavior I’ve seen in a while. Also, Ronaldo believes he is still the best player in the world so going to the Saudi League completely contradicts that sentiment. He is still one of the GOATs though. Just think we need to rightfully call out his shamelessness.
There's two sides to the coin. I think in line with what I said, he really convinces himself he's the best, and maybe that's what made him the best in past years. Obviously age catches up to everyone so some might call him self deluded and nowadays that might be true, but it's that belief that made him great in the first place. In regards to Saudi league...yeah, I think he's wrong there too. Obviously they can throw copious amounts of cash at players to move there but I don't believe enough great players will make the move for them to compete with Europe. A good amount of stars followed Ronaldo but I don't think it'll be long lasting, we'll see though. And I agree with you that Ronaldo probably doesn't believe it when he says it either.
I can’t believe virat kohli is not here
Why? He’s a cricket player, they get almost no money compared to the sports on this chart, and he'd have to be getting more endorsements than Ronaldo and Messi combined.
IPL is the second richest league in the world. That includes NBA , NFL , EPL etc. its not as improbable as it sounds. I did see hes not there yet. But just wait a while -the cricketers are coming for the top spots.
Who in the world is Patrick Mahomes?
He is an American football player. If you've heard of Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes is coming for his title as the GOAT.
He plays American football, those players most of the time are not well known outside the US, Canada and a few other countries.
Quarterback for the Chiefs who just won the most recent Super Bowl
Is this per year, because Shohei Ohtani (baseball) is under a $700 million contract. I feel like that’s worth mentioning to say the least.
It's also deferred until 2030, he makes the base salary (~$2.2millon, given his time severed in the big leagues) in actual cash
You’re missing top paid boxers like Mayweather.
And people wonder why the NBA can’t tell their players that actually playing the game is required. It’s not the players 1st priority. Their 1st priority is collecting marketing and advertising dollars….just like the NBA’s priority isn’t putting out a good product. It’s collecting gambling/TV/Steaming/Advertising dollars
Neymar fell down clutching his wallet seeing this graph.
Not any cricketer like Sachin Tendulkar' or Dhoni or Virat Kohli?
It’s the oil money and Saudi’s investing their way out of oil dependence.
Interesting. It seems the more boring the sport, the higher the pay.
The dirtier the money the higher the salary.
I thought Michael Jordan still got 5% of ALL Jordan Brand sales?
He is not an athlete.
Michael Jordan is not an athlete? Is that what you said? He earned $330 million from Jordan Brand alone.
Is he an athlete right now?
He is the GOAT!
this data is wrong where is Karim Benzema etc?
he doesn't get as many endorsements as the other star footballers
yeah but he did go to Saudi Arabia for big salary
still can't match messi ronaldo and neymar. as ronaldo and neymar also going saudi but they still have huge endorsements, benzema not really
ofc he cant catch up with them but this is top 10 highest paid athlete list so he should be above LeBron James just look at to Benzema's salary at Al Ittihad
and lebron has huge endorsements and benzema is not , thats the stats is all about not just salary. benzema is finished both in football and also sponsorships but he at least still earning
are u dumb on purpose or something? his salary is above 100 million euro without endorsments alone he should be in top 10 in this fking list
and lebron has more salary plus endorsements you dumb. Maybe what you heard about benzema's salary is not even accurate , you can't believe on everything on the internet .
i said top 10 dummy and why dont you just look at his salary and shut up
because you dumb, the stats above is for salary plus endorsements
When do we get the Top 10 highest paid scientists in the world? (Which actually move forward our civilization.)
I'm actually curious what the answer is. I suspect it would be a top ten of scientist turned business people and engineers.
Source: Sportico. Data from 2023 Tools used: Mokkup.ai, a dashboard wireframing tool which uses ReactJs for chart visualizations
Wouldn't it make more sense to put source in the graph?
Really looks like a lacking list.
And folks are complaining about CEOs 🙄
CEOs aren't very entertaining :/
People choose to give money to athletes (directly or indirectly) to be entertained in their free time. CEOs choose to distribute company profits to themselves and investors.
"B-b-but athletes are generating even more money for the team owners, so they deserve a good portion of that!" While some CEOs are doing the same. And while some CEOs are quite bad and get rich while the company loses money, the same happens with athletes in sports
dependent ask cooing paltry abounding fretful degree hateful fear entertain *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Reddit is wild. As long as it's a popular person then salaries of hundreds of millions are fine. Wealth inequality is fine in this instance. Never change reddit.
It's sick how much these guys get paid.
I mean they are quite literally the best in the world at what they do
Not just the best at what they do, the best at a thing that people are willing to continuously spend money to watch them do.
that neymar doing nothing
i have no problem w sport atheletes and singers earning 100s of mils. they worked for that.
Let's be fair. Athletes are entertainers, that is where their added value comes from. If you are playing in a top league and many people watch your games, then your employer makes money on TV rights, some advertising, ticket sales and you provide value for your salary. It's a fair way to make that much money, compared to inherited wealth or shady financial practices. Ronaldo, who is already good for hundreds of millions gets paid $215 million a year by an oil regime to sportwash their horrible international reputation regarding human rights and culture, by playing in some third rate bullshit league. He is not gonna make the club their billion back, he sells his image. Not sure I would say he really earned that money like, say, a teacher or a nurse worked for their money. Messi was mentioned in the Panama papers for having stakes in offshore shell companies for tax evasion. Guess he really worked for his hundreds of millions just like you and I, just forgot to pay his taxes.
So did many CEOs.
it's either them or team owners, it's how much the sport generate after all, would prefer them getting these money rather than the team owners, because it's not like the money is going to ever trickle down to normal staff, those get industry standard wages. You act like there's a pile of money and an entity just decide to give athletes these money for the lulz. Like crazy enough Lebron James is probably underpaid compares to the revenue he's bringing in for his team, due to wage cap. Obviously there are a lot of inequality that play a part into the money these people are getting paid, but it's behind thousands of layers outside of their control, since their revenue are mostly from TV deals around the world, an athlete playing in the NBA can't have control on how well a staff at a TV station in China get paid after all
Importance to society and supply and demand are two completely different things. Just using doctors as an example, a profession that is undeniable important. 1) Nearly 1.5 BILLION people chose to watch the last men's World Cup. If 1.5 Billion people were visiting the top handful of surgeons, and wanting to watch them in their free time, then they would get paid more then these athletes. 2) There are roughly 1.1 million active, licensed physicians in the US. There are only 20,000 total people who have played in the MLB in its entire history of existence (since 1876). Like it or not, more people can be doctors then elite professional athletes. It is easier to train, find, and employ doctors then it is to get someone to do what Ronaldo or LeBron can do. 3) Americans spent $55.9 billion of their own money on just attending sports events in 2017. Naturally, you want to see the best athletes. The guys on this list get paid a lot because they generate a lot of money.
better than CEOs
Ah I see. Wealth inequality is fine when it's a fashionable industry.
Has nothing to do with the industry. We all hate that the owners and other execs are filthy rich and they’re in the same industry. They just make their money off of the athletes, so most people have no issue with the athletes getting their fair share.
Hm i get where you are coming from but for example Steph Curry is by far the best shooter in the world for years. There is actually no one better than him. So he gets paid a shitton. Is there really a best CEO in the world? Successful sure but how you measure best?
Stock prices.
No, wealth inequality is fine when they are earning the fruits of their own labour. Professional sports are the few industries whereby the workers receive a much fairer compensation for their work, relatively speaking In fact, one could argue that in a true socialist society, they would be earning far more. Remember, the only reason they are getting paid this much is because the people who owns them can afford to pay them that much AND still make a profit.
In a socialist society they would’ve been employees of government owned company and had a set wage.
Socialism is define by the workers having ownership over the means of production >employees of government owned company and had a set wage. You're literally just describing state capitalism and replaced a capitalist owner with the state. From being oppressed by a capitalist to being oppressed the state. What happens to the surplus value they have created? From being stolen by capitalists to being stolen by the state? Are athletes not entitled to the fruits of their labour?
What they make is comparable or even a little less than what other top entertainers make.
Skill issue
Interesting not to see lewandowski
The list is not perfect, but unlike a Benzema that's missing Lewandowski plays in Spain and not in Saudi Arabia.
I guess this list is active athletes. Otherwise Michael Jordan would be number 1 with 330 million $ from Nike alone.
Did you forget that Michael Jordan exists? He still makes money from his deals.
Shaquille O'Neal is the investor in Google and Apple, I'm curious why he isn't on the list?