Top Athletes Make a Boatload of Money
Sports Illustrated recently released its list of 50 top-earning American athletes and let's just say, they are all doing pretty well financially. here are the top 10 and the amounts they earned on and off (endorsements) the field:
1. Tiger Woods - $112 million
2. Oscar De La Hoya - $55 million
3. Phil Mickelson - $51 million
4. Shaquille O'Neal - $35 million
5. Kobe Bryant - $34 million
6. LeBron James - $31 million
7. Kevin Garnett - $29 million
8. Derek Jeter - $29 million
9. Alex Rodriguez - $28 million
10. Dale Earnhardt Jr. - $27 million
Wow.
A few interesting statistics from the overall list:
1. Endorsements are bigger than salaries. Of the top 10, 57% of the earnings are from endorsements driven by Tiger Woods (89%), Phil Mickelson (92%), LeBron James (81%) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (74%).
2. The only woman in the top 50 is Michelle Wie. She's #22 with $20.2 million.
3. Super Bowl MVP Peyton Manning is the NFL's top earner on and off the field (#12, $23 million.)
4. Seems like it's better to be a top athlete where you're in an individual sport (golf) or one with a small number of players (basketball.) It means more money to keep for yourself versus, say, football where the money needs to be divided among many more players. Popularity of the sport helps a bit too, of course, but in the end, personality makes the biggest difference. If top athletes have a winning personality and image that can help sell products, they'll clean up royally.
The top earning non-American athletes aren't doing poorly either. Here are the top five:
1. Fernando Alonso - $35 million
2. Ronaldinho - $33 million
3. Roger Federer - $31 million
4. Valentino Rossi - $30 million
5. David Beckham - $30 million
Not bad for playing a sport and having fun, huh?
The money being divided amongst the NFL players is a good thing. It keeps the teams balanced with talent and the game interesting every year.
Posted by: Ciji | June 14, 2007 at 11:23 AM
Athletes do earn a lot of money--now, while I argue they might "need" to make more than the average person, because their careers are much shorter, they are paid an outrageous amount of money to play.
But speaking of salaries, I'm a baseball fan. In 2005, if you wanted to pay both MVPs (one in each league), you'd be paying $37,000,000--for just that year. That makes 2006 a relative bargain, as it cost $740,000 to pay for both of them.
Posted by: Beth | June 14, 2007 at 11:28 AM
When will the Olympics feature Pro Blogging?!!?!?!?
Posted by: A Tentative Personal Finance Blog | June 14, 2007 at 12:12 PM
I wish I would've continued in my sports endeavors. I think I could at least pull in 200k/year. I'd be happy with that :-)
Posted by: Tyler | June 14, 2007 at 02:45 PM
I wonder how much they
... either paid in taxes
...or put way in some tax-shelter?
Posted by: tlange | June 14, 2007 at 08:34 PM
David Beckham just signed a 5-year deal for a quarter of a billion dollars ($250 million) with the LA Galaxy in the MLS. That's $50 million a year!
Posted by: Christian Finance | June 15, 2007 at 12:34 AM