OT - 25 Highest Paid Athletes

Submitted by Chiwolve on

A lot of interesting things...

Not surprised to see Floyd "Money" Mayweather at the top or Ronaldo and Messi as 2 & 3...

but had no idea that Stafford is the 6th highest paid athlete in the world of sports. Stafford is probably not even a top 6 QB in the NFC North (kidding...sorta).

Other interesting names to most professional and collegiate fans in the state of Michigan include Tom Brady @ 7 and Calvin Johnson @ 16

http://espn.go.com/espn/notebook/_/id/10761701/25-highest-paid-athletes…

 

LSAClassOf2000

April 15th, 2014 at 5:12 PM ^

Very interesting list, although I will say that was isn't at all shocking about it is that about  60% of the people on it are either in the NFL or MLB (I counted 8 for baseball and 8 for football). Even less shocking is that all but one of the football players are QBs, come to think of it. What I didn't apprciate before is the size of the difference between top pay in the NHL and top pay in the other 3 major sports - that was interesting to me. 

trueblueintexas

April 15th, 2014 at 6:56 PM ^

When you look at the top 8 in each league, I doubt the actual list matches up very well with the list any of us would have put together. Granted, this is a one year look and bonuses have a big impact, but man, those are some odd names to be at the top this year.

treetown

April 15th, 2014 at 10:13 PM ^

Worldwide, it shows that there are a lot of sports that make serious dollars/euros/currency of choice - soccer in three leagues: Spain (la liga 1), Great Britain (EPL) and France (ligue 1); Formula 1 has two entries. Most interesting is how many MLB players there are with 10.

Gulogulo37

April 16th, 2014 at 12:23 AM ^

How is Mayweather so high when boxing isn't that popular anymore? Is it that huge in other countries? I know PacMan is huge in the Philippines, but I doubt Mayweather is so popular. And anyway I don't think a country like that is generating tons of money for boxing. Is it just because it's not a team sport, so only 2 guys need to get paid for one event? Or perhaps because boxing still seems so popular with gamblers?

sadeto

April 16th, 2014 at 12:41 AM ^

Floyd Mayweather made a LOT more than $75 million last year, those fees were just the minimums that he paid himself under his business model, where he puts up all of the money and even pays his opponent, takes all of the risk and keeps all of the profit. He made $85 million off the Alvarez fight alone. That's why a Mayweather-Pacman fight won't happen, Arum offered him a cool $100M at a 60/40 split and he said no. He wants control and knows that fight could generate $250M that he shouldn't have to share with a promoter.

And for the poster who said boxing isn't popular any more, tell me about any other entertainment event that generates 2.2 million PPV sales at $65 a pop.

Gulogulo37

April 16th, 2014 at 12:48 AM ^

I said it isn't THAT popular anymore. Clearly, there are a number of sports more popular and valuable. The NFL still makes tons of money despite not being on PPV. The point is Mayweather's value outstrips the popularity of his sport considering he's by far the highest-paid athlete even though he's in the...6th(?) most popular sport. So is it just simple division? Seeing as he's not sharing with any teammates.