Professional sports are one of the areas affected by the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. With the cancellation of major sporting events, incomes for the world's top 100 richest athletes began to fall.
They earned a total of $ 3.6 billion this year, which is 9% less than last year. Still, sponsor contracts, investments and, of course, club salaries allow celebrities to maintain the lifestyle they are used to.
Introducing the Forbes Top 10 Highest Paid Athletes of 2020.
10. Carson Wentz - $ 59.1 million, American football player
Wentz was not in the top 100 athletes with the highest income last year. But times are changing, and now he is in the top ten. Last year, American club Philadelphia Eagles signed a four-year contract with Wentz for $ 128 million.
This amount includes a signing bonus of $ 16.4 million, as well as an option bonus of $ 30 million, which was paid in March this year.
9. Kirk Cousins - $ 60.5 million, American football player
Cousins has yet to be favored by sponsor cash flow, and has earned just $ 2.5 million from advertising deals this year. Of course, this is a fantastic amount for the average person, but a mere trifle compared to other participants in the top 10.
But in March 2020, he signed a two-year $ 66 million contract renewal with Vikings, including a $ 30 million bonus. He makes Cousins the highest paid player in the NFL between June 2019 and June 2020.
8. Tiger Woods - $ 62.3 million, golfer
The lone golfer in the Forbes Top 10 Richest Athletes is set to hit screens in a new two-part HBO film. Although Woods himself did not tell the channel about himself, the filmmakers are not embarrassed. Indeed, they have at their disposal over 250 interviews with people familiar with the famous athlete.
The film will focus on a high-profile sex scandal that almost ended the great golfer's career. When information that the married Woods was having an affair with Rachel Teacher leaked to the media, it gave way to a wide stream of confessions from other women. It turned out that the athlete had 121 mistresses.
In the meantime, the loving Tiger is waving his club for $ 2.3 million (the remaining $ 60 million are advertising contracts), we will wait for the fall, when the film about him should come out.
7.Kevin Durant - $ 63.9 million, basketball player
The Brooklyn Nets player and ten-time NBA All-Star receives $ 35 million from advertising contracts alone. He is also an active investor who has invested in more than 40 companies, including Postmates and the Acorns investment app.
This season, Durant does not plan to return to the floor, even after the resumption of the 2019/20 season, stopped due to the coronavirus.Recall that last summer the player was injured - an Achilles tendon rupture, and because of this he did not play a single match for his new team.
6. Stephen Curry - $ 74.4 million, basketball player
Like many of the world's top earning athletes, the Warriors' star point guard earns a large proportion of his income from advertising. At the same time, he does not have many sponsors: Callaway Golf, Under Armor, Chase and Fanatics.
Besides basketball, Curry and Challenges are no strangers. So, recently he took part in #ShirtOffShootOut, the essence of which is to throw his own clothes into the basket, from a three-meter distance.
5. LeBron James - $ 88.2 million, basketball player
Despite the fact that over the past 12 months, LeBron's income has decreased by $ 800,000, he has climbed three places in the ranking of the richest sports stars at once. Moreover, most of the income of the famous basketball player was brought by advertising contracts with KIA Motors, Nike, Coca-Cola, and other sponsors.
But even if we imagine that "King James" suddenly quits his sports career, he will not remain barefoot and hungry. After all, he, together with partners, owns 19 Blaze Pizza franchises. And in 2018, the athlete teamed up with Cindy Crawford, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lindsey Vonn to found Ladder, a subscription-based sports nutrition brand.
4. Neymar - $ 95.5 million, footballer
The transfer of this footballer from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain is still led by list of the most expensive transfers in football history... The French paid $ 263 million for Neymar.
But the old fat days are over, and in 2020 Neymar earned $ 70.5 million at his club, while a year earlier this amount was $ 75 million. The rest of the sum was brought to the athlete by advertising contracts with Electronic Arts, Nike, Beats Electronics and other firms.
3. Lionel Messi - $ 104 million, footballer
The winner of last year's ranking of the richest athletes in 2020 was only in third place. His current contract with Barcelona, signed until 2020-21, brought in $ 72 million, and the remaining $ 32 million came from sponsorship contracts with various companies (Adidas, Huawei, Pepsi, etc.).
Messi is not only the face of Argentine football, but also one of the celebrities entrusted by WHO to lead a worldwide campaign to stop the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. Its essence was in recommendations for the prevention of coronavirus infection.
2. Cristiano Ronaldo - $ 105 million, footballer
Due to the suspension of the playing season in March of this year, football clubs cut the salaries of their players. And even such stars as Ronaldo and Messi have felt for themselves what the financial crisis means.
For bread with black caviar, one of the most beautiful and popular football players there is still enough in the world, his salary was $ 60 million, and he received another $ 45 million from advertising contracts. However, Ronaldo made $ 109 million last year.
1. Roger Federer - $ 106 million, tennis player
After overtaking such highly paid sports stars as Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, tennis player Roger Federer climbed to the financial pedestal. This happened for the first time in the history of the Forbes ranking, but, who knows, perhaps not the last.
Federer is a champion in sponsorship contracts, thanks to which he managed to earn $ 100 million over the past year. 13 companies cooperate with him, including such giants as Credit Suisse, Wilson, Mercedes-Benz and Nike. The love of brands for Federer is explained by his image: an exemplary family man, in connections that defame him, is not noticed, always looks and speaks elegantly. And besides, he wins on courts around the world. This means that it is popular not only in its own country.
None of the Russians entered Forbes' new sports and money ranking. If we take the NHL stars, then Alexander Ovechkin has the highest salary - $ 15 million, and Alexander receives a third of this amount from sponsorship contracts.