50 richest athletes...

[andy]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mor...x.html?cnn=yes

obviously, a lot of money in golf as the #1 and #2 ranked richest athletes is tiger and phil. ton of basketball players...only other golfer in top 50 is jim juryk at #41

regardless, all are making ridiculous money!

[Iowa Hawkeye]

$99,000,000. A year. Yearly. As in he'll make that again next year. And the year after that.

http://87billion.com/

[ApocG10]

yup. Imagine if he hadnt missed the last half of the year, he might have beaten schumachers record (120million)

[Scaldy]

Interesting read. I can't believe the endorsement numbers some of these guys are pulling in. Where's Sidney Crosby? He's on Canadian TV a few times every day pushing Reebok or Tim Horton's. I guess they don't pay THAT well.

[sp33d]

If I made 30k a year golfing I would quit my job, I'm not even joking.

I think football players should make more because they generally have the shortest careers, how ever if your making 1m a year for 10 years and end up being poor you deserve it for being an idiot.

[timwalsh300]

I think football players should make more because they generally have the shortest careers

I love listening to other people talk about what someone "should" be paid and why...

The only thing that matters is what the guy does for his employer's bottom line. And that doesn't necessarily correlate with how often an athlete wins, or helps his team to win. However, in team sports we occasionally see owners happily take a financial loss (i.e. spend too much on their players) just for the sake of winning. The disparities in endorsement deals are especially interesting to me. Only 3 golfers make the list, yet 2 of them are #1 and #2. And nobody else is even close. I'm guessing that endorsement deals with golfers (as opposed to baseball or basketball players) are much more lucrative because it is the sport of choice for people who have money to spend. Not many 40 year-olds will go out and buy baseball equipment, but a lot of them will buy a new driver. So I understand Nike's deal with Tiger. But I do wonder, does Tiger really generate that much money for AT&T;? Does Phil really generate that much for Barclays? I guess another issue is that a golfer's appeal can be geographically universal. In team sports, by contrast, you have geographic rivalries. An endorsement deal with Derek Jeter is great in New York, but it can actually hurt you somewhere else (e.g. Boston). Tim

[sp33d]

I was talking about compaired to baseball/basketball players, Im happy golfers are 1 and 2.

[Clambake]

To put Tiger's winnings into something more visual, his $99 million would be a stack of $100 bills stretching over 4200 feet tall! Poor Phil, his stack of $100s would only reach 2200 feet tall.

[zeg]

I think it's also the relative scarcity of famous golfers that boosts the income from sponsorships. Really, there's one golfer that non-golfers know -- TW. In any other sport, because there are teams, you wind up with larger numbers of famous players competing. When Jordan was still playing, there was a similar effect... So if you're getting a basketball player for your ad campaign, you have choices. If you want a golfer, you need Tiger-- your return on investment will be far, far less, even if you get Phil...

[pittpanther]

I think football players should make more because they generally have the shortest careers...

Well, if "should" had anything to do with it, then Nascar drivers "should" make the most, because of the risk of death. Football players "should" be next, not only because of their shorter careers, but shorter lifespans as well. Football players, especially lineman, seem to die earlier than most, in their 50s and 60s.

Football players "should" earn larger salaries, but are hampered by collusion among the NFL owners. It's much worse in the NFL than MLB or NBA as reflected in their average salaries.

[microcrayfish]

Don't forget that the list only ranks American athletes. If you look at the international list you'll see that Vijay would slot in at number 9 and Sergio at 16 on the American list (obviously not adding in the other international athletes also). Even without Vijay's $10 million from the FedEx Cup he'd still be up there so there's obviously more to it than there only being two marketable golfers in the world.

[Iowa Hawkeye]

In all reality there is just as much risk, if not more on a crowded golf course than there is driving in NASCAR, IRL, and the like.

[sp33d]

Yes but I hate nascar so that doesnt come into the percentages in my head ;)