Forbes magazine has just announced a list of income of the world's top athletes. Cristiano continues to lead for the third consecutive year even though his on-field performance is not as good as before.
In 12 months of Forbes' assessment, Ronaldo earned 275 million USD while playing for Al Nassr. This number helped Ronaldo overcome Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors (156 million USD) and heavyweight English fighter Tyson Fury (146 million USD).
Lionel Messi, the Inter Miami star, is 5th on the list with an income of 135 million USD, slightly behind midfielder Dak Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys football team.
Looking at this income table, we can see that Ronaldo is still far ahead of Messi in terms of money from the club he is joining. Two years ago, there were rumors that Al Hilal was willing to pay 1 billion USD to welcome Messi to the Saudi Arabia tournament, but in the end, this deal failed. If M10 hadn't nodded that day, he could still dominate Forbes' rankings now.
Ronaldo's 275 million USD is still not the most amount an athlete has ever earned in a calendar year. In 2015, right-handed boxer Floyd Mayweather earned $300 million. By 2018, this figure was 285 million USD.
In the past year, CR7 has earned more than any other athlete in the world, with an estimated minimum distance of $119 million. In terms of off-field revenue, there is no basis for statistics, but Ronaldo is always confident that he is not inferior to anyone, especially when compared to the top sports stars in the US.
Despite being the representative face of the US professional league MLS, Messi is still constantly left behind by Ronaldo in the income rankings. Inter Miami have tried every way to break the salary ceiling for El Pulga, but catching up with Ronaldo is almost impossible at the moment.
The Premier League - the tournament Ronaldo has fought for but is still known as the most attractive on the planet - has no players on the Forbes top list. The highest-ranked person is Manchester City striker Erling Haaland with an income of 62 million USD. He was ranked 4th in the list of athletes aged 25 and under.
Last year, Mohamed Salah was 38th but this year he was not on the list of 50 people named by Forbes. Last year, Forbes estimated Kevin De Bruyne as one of the 10 highest-paid players but also absent this year.
Unlike the Premier League, the Saudi Pro League has more and more stars with huge incomes. In addition to the number 1 symbol Ronaldo, his former Real Madrid teammate Karim Benzema also earned 104 million USD while playing for Al Ittihad. Saudi Pro League football stars are appearing more and more if the rankings are expanded, not just limited to 50 names.
There are 8 football players in Forbes' list of 50 athletes. Among them, there are 5 people over 33 years old. This shows that media image is very important for the stars of the king sport. When they are no longer as competitive as when they were young, the reputation they have built in the past will be a very effective tool to make money.
