Sports Then and Now

Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi has been named the highest paid athlete in the world for the first time. He earned $ 127 million last year.

As betindex.bet mentions, basketball and football dominate the Top 100 highest paid in the sport in the ranking of Forbes magazine, with a wide variety of nationalities among the participants. Forbes calculates the income of athletes by collecting the amounts of their salaries, salaries and sponsorship agreements between June 2018 and June 2019.

In the list of the top 100 after Messi come two other football superstars – Cristiano Ronaldo ($ 109 million) and Neymar ($ 105 million) – the first players ranked as the first three players.

Last year’s highest paid athlete, boxer Floyd Mayweather, dropped off the list altogether.

Tennis star Serena Williams is the only woman in the Top 100, ranking 63rd. There were no women on last year’s list.

Competitors from 10 sports enter the Top 100, with the most NBA stars. Thirty-five basketball players are included in the rankings, led by LeBron James with revenues of $ 89 million.

Stephen Curry ($ 79.8 million) and Kevin Durant ($ 65.4 million) are also in the Top 10.

No Australian is on the list, but New Zealand basketball player Stephen Adams is in 78th place.

To enter the Top 100, athletes had to earn a minimum of $ 25 million.

The only cricketer on the list, Indian Virat Koli, is in 100th place, earning exactly $ 25 million.

In general, the best athletes are from 25 countries – compared to 22 last year.

Messi is one of the 38 non-US athletes on the list – the country has 62 participants in the rankings.

Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton and boxer Anthony Joshua (both with $ 55 million) are Britain’s best-winning athletes.

France and Spain have three athletes each, while Brazil, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Serbia and Venezuela have two each.

Kurt Badenhausen, senior editor at Forbes Media, commented: “The global impact of football is clearly reflected in income, with the three best-winning athletes on the list being Messi, Ronaldo and Neymar. But basketball players continue to dominate the top 100 as a total of 35 earn a total of $ 1.29 billion, with 72% of that revenue coming from salaries rather than transactions with sponsors. “

Top 10 of the best winning athletes 

1. Lionel Messi (football) – $ 127 million

2. Cristiano Ronaldo (football) – $ 109 million

3. Neymar (football) – $ 105 million

4. Canelo Alvarez (boxing) – $ 94 million

5. Roger Federer (tennis) – $ 93.4 million

6. Russell Wilson (NFL) – $ 89.5 million

7. Aaron Rodgers (NFL) – $ 89.3 million

8. LeBron James (NBA) – $ 89 million

9. Stephen Curry (NBA) – $ 79.8 million

10. Kevin Durant (NBA) – $ 65.4 million