Wow. I love lists like this. The totals; Salary/Winnings: $747,081,653 Endorsements: $360,275,00 Grand Total: 1,107,356,653 By sport; MLB Salary/Winnings: $110,000,000 or 14.72% of all Salary/Winnings Endorsements: $18,000,000 or 5.00% of all Endorsement money MLB Total: $128,000,000 or 11.56% of all NASCAR Salary/Winnings: $26,295,433 or 3.52% of all Salary/Winnings Endorsements: $38,000,000 or 10.55% of all Endorsement money NASCAR Total: $64,295,433 or 5.81% of all NBA Salary/Winnings: $329,696,890 or 44.13% of all Salary/Winnings Endorsements: $99,000,000 or 27.48% of all Endorsement money NBA Total: $428,696,890 or 38.71% of all The New York Knicks salaries account for 18.70% of the NBA and 8.25% of all salaries. NFL Salary/Winnings: $99,900,000 or 13.37% of all Salary/Winnings Endorsements: $35,800,000 or 9.94% of all Endorsement money NFL Total: $135,700,000 or 12.25% of all PGA Salary/Winnings: $16,599,734 or 2.22% of all Salary/Winnings Endorsements: $127,000,000 or 35.25% of all Endorsement money PGA Total: $143,599,734 or 12.97% Tiger Woods accounts for 24.15% of all Endorsement money. Tennis Salary/Winnings: $1,629,596 or 0.22% of all Salary/Winnings Endorsements: $23,000,000 or 6.38% of all Endorsement money Tennis Total: $24,629,596 or 2.22% of all If you want to play with the data I put the spreadsheet I created here. Yeah, I did spend entirely too much time on this.
My mistake. I apologize. But that is still a lot of money!
Interesting, not one woman made the list.
Interesting list but, I would question the accuracy a bit (Keith Van Horn?). I think at some point you will see some women on the list (Sharapove if she wins some more springs to mind and in the future, MichelleWie). At any rate, the next time you hear some extremely highly compensated athelete complain about the rigors of their job and the instrusion of fans, think of those individuals who toil their entire lives providing you services for their entire lives to make about a month's worth of the what the bottom people on this list make in a month.
Interesting, anyone know if there is an international version of this list?
Imagine how much more Michael Vick would be making in endorsements if he could complete a pass.
poor Carson Palmer, stuck doing local car dealership commercials
Or if Ron MexicoMichael Vick actually had a Valtrex endorsement deal as discussed previously.
If and when Danica Patrick goes to Nascar, im sure that she'll be on the list. Can you imagine how many indorsments she'll recieve?
What I like about that list is about 5 of those baseball guys were at some point in time Houston Astros (Berkman, Beltran, Bagwell, Wagner, Clemens were the ones I saw)...which goes to tell you that the Astros have/had some pretty well-to-do guys on their team at various points.
The name that im suprised nobody mentioned was Brian Grant- hes as big of a waste as Penny, or even Van Horn. Did anyone notice how many players on this list were from the Knicks? They had Van Horn, and Penny, Marbury, Francis, J Rose, and probably a few others. Plus, the Knicks are about to overpay again for another average talent in Jared Jefferies. It looks like Thomas is going to completely dismantle the team during his rein of terror, if he hasn't already.
I checked an international list on Forbes. com of highest payed athletes in the world and found Ferrari's Michael Schumacher was 2nd on the global list at $80 million.
Imagine, making all this money without a job.
List of Top 50 Fortunate (U.S.-born) athletes
The article did include a link to the Top 20 International (ie. non-U.S.) athletes. FWIW, Sharapova came in 4th. The article also had an addendum suggesting who will be on the list next year, when the 2006 totals are tallied up. Danica Patrick and Michelle Wie are certain to be there on endorsements alone.
Yeah smithers, I think I'm going blind :) Thanks.
Not a single hockey player in the bunch (either the US top 50 or International top 20).
Years ago Bill Freehan of the Tigers had an endorsement deal with a Detroit auto dealership. All he was paid was two new cars a year (Ford's I think, if memory serves). Times sure have changed!
There are too many Yankees on the list, both international and U.S.
