The likes of Virat Kohli, Lionel Messi, Roger Federer, and Tiger Woods may not be having the best of time on the field of play currently, but that hasn’t affected their earnings too much over the last year.
Most of the aforementioned sportspersons feature in the top 10 earners in the last year, according to list released by Sportico, which looks at salary, prize money, and endorsements of the athletes.
NBA legend Le Bron James leads the way, and moved up from the fifth spot to the top with a kitty of $126.9 million. He is followed by the football superstars Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, who earned $122 million and $115 million respectively. Coming in behind them is Brazilian Neymar with $103 million.
Canelo Alvarez, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Roger Federer, James Harden and Tiger Woods wrap up the top ten. Formula 1 star Lewis Hamilton is 19th ($54 million) and Conor McGregor is 22nd on the list with his earnings listed at $52 million.
Former India captain Virat Kohli ranks 61st on the list, earning $33.9 million. No other cricketer or Indian made it to the top 100.
Who Are the Highest Earning Women in Sports?
Among the female athletes, it is Naomi Osaka who leads the way at $53.2 million; she is ranked No 20 overall. Along with Osaka, veteran tennis ace Serena Williams is the only other woman athlete in the top 100.
Serena is ranked at number 52 with having raked in $35.3 million. The two tennis players were also the only female athletes in the top 100 in the previous year as well.
Along with Serena and Osaka, Swiss ace Federer is the only other tennis player in the top 100 earners list.
Which Sports Have the Richest Athletes?
According to the calculations made by Sportico, Basketball outdoes all the other sports by quite a distance and has 36 athletes in the top 100 list. Football follows up at second spot with 25 while soccer (13) and baseball (12) are third and fourth respectively.
Golf (4), boxing (3), tennis (3), racing (2), MMA (1) and cricket (1) round up the top 100.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)