Forbes has released its annual list of the world’s top-earning athletes, and while many of the names won’t surprise you, some of the broader results will raise some eyebrows. The list looks at players’ earnings from June 2008 to June 2009; all told, the players earned $789 million, with $30 million necessary just to make the dance.
Tiger Woods is far and away the top earner, with familiar worldwide icons like Michael Jordan and David Beckham joining him in the top five. Their combinations of salary and endorsement incomes place them just about in the “small Central American nation” category of earning power.
But let’s take this in another direction. Instead of discussing the individuals, let’s focus on the sports that have the highest earners. And it’s there that some interesting trends begin to emerge.
Basketball (5): Newly-crowned NBA champ Kobe Bryant and Jordan both tie for second on the list, followed by LeBron James (tied for sixth), Shaquille O’Neal (tied for 11th) and Kevin Garnett (tied for 17th). The lack of a hard salary cap in the NBA combined with explosive overseas popularity vault these five future Hall-of-Famers into the stratosphere.
Motorsports (5): Hey, how about this? Kimi Raikkonen (tied for second), motocross icon Valentino Rossi (ninth), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (10th), Lewis Hamilton (tied for 13th) and Jeff Gordon (tied for 17th) represent motorsports quite well. It’ll be interesting to see whether the downturn in sponsor dollars will have an impact on this list next year.
Golf (3): Tiger Woods (first) and Phil Mickelson (tied for sixth) pocket enormous endorsement and appearance fees whenever they step out of their house. Vijay Singh (16th) won a $10 million prize for taking the FedEx Cup last year, which will do wonders for your financial standing.
Boxing (2): Manny Pacquiao (tied for sixth) and Oscar de la Hoya (tied for 13th) tend to make their money in big chunks — Pacquiao made 75 percent of his cash last year from just two fights. But both are international icons, which means that cash pours in from all over the globe.
Baseball (2): Alex Rodriguez (tied for 13th) and Derek Jeter (tied for 17th) share one side of the Yankees infield and could buy one-half of Manhattan, if they joined forces. A significant majority of their income comes from salary, which is why Yankee fans pay twenty bucks for beer.
Soccer (2): David Beckham holds down fifth place, while Ronaldinho is tied for 17th. Famous more for being famous than for actually playing at this point, Beckham can still command top dollar just for sheer awesomeness. Ronaldinho is still on the upswing of his career and should move well up the list.
Tennis (1): Roger Federer, tied for 11th, is tennis’s lone representative. At least he’s got one honor that Rafael Nadal hasn’t taken away from him yet. Give it time, though, give it time.
You’ll note that there are no NFL players on there. (No hockey players either, but that’s not as much of a surprise.) As Forbes notes, despite being the richest of the sports leagues, the NFL’s salary cap keeps paychecks low, and other than Peyton Manning and Brett Favre, there aren’t any serious endorsement pitchmen capable of making the tall dollars. NFL players Ben Roethlisberger and Dwight Freeney were on the list last year thanks to contracts with big signing bonuses, as were boxer Floyd Mayweather and F1 driver Fernando Alonso, who was ranked 21st.
Last year’s earners made 1 percent more than this year’s, but it’s a fair bet that number will continue to fall in 2010. Even so, it’s unlikely any of these athletes will be standing in soup lines anytime soon.
