Football Players Make Money

By: chris | February 11th, 2008

I know, revolutionary reporting, huh. Sports Illustrated put up their annual list of top earning athletes, separating it into two separate categories: Americans and Non-Americans. (You know, being an American publication and all.) Not surprisingly, soccer players didn’t get a whiff of the Top 50 on the domestic list. However, they dominated the international list, shepherding 9 big money makers into the International 20. And fear not, Chelsea FC is well represented.

(This was obviously done in American dollaz - so feel free to multiple by about 10 and 20 for the euro and pound, respectively.)

Top 20.:.

1. Fernando Alonso. Auto Racing. $35m.
2. Ronaldinho. Barcelona. $32.7m.
3. Roger Federer. Tennis. $31,343,885m. (Roger has an anal accountant.)
4. Valentino Rossi. Motor Sports. $30m.
5. David Beckham. Real Madrid/LA Galaxy. $29.7m.
6. Yao Ming. Basketball. $27.455m.
7. Ichiro Suzuki. Baseball. $24m.
8. Maria Sharapova. Tennis. $23,799,501m. (Alright, guess it’s a tennis thing.)
9. Thierry Henry. Arsenal/Barcelona. $21.4m.
10. Michael Ballack. Chelsea. $20.9m.
11. Ronaldo. Milan. $19m. (Yeah, I’d like to see this $-to-minutes played ratio.)
12. Hideki Matsui. Baseball. $19m. (All of which goes straight to his vault of porn.)
13. Dirk Nowitski. Basketball. $18,101,625m.
14. Ralf Schumacher. Auto Racing. $18m.
15. Andriy Shevchenko. Chelsea Bench. $17.3m. (I can’t wait until Ronaldo is ushered out of Milan in favor of Andriy this summer. One for the other.)
16. Alfonso Soriano. Baseball. $17.25m.
17. Vijay Singh. Golf. $16,411,026m.
18. Alessandro Del Piero. Juventus. $15.7m. (Probably the best earnings from a Serie B athlete ever.)
19. John Terry. Chelsea. $15.5m. ($100,000 more than Stevie G, now we know why McClaren gave him the captaincy.)
20. Steven Gerrard. Liverpool. $15.4m.

Link here.

Category: World Football

Tags: Ballack, Beckham, Gerrard, Henry, money, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Shevchenko, Sports Ilustrated, Terry, World Football

« Weekend Recap: Up on Top | Home | Photo of the Day: Ominous »

Subscribe   The Offside RSS Feeds

Print

Share

Comments  

• Romanista sa |  February 11th, 2008 at 12:03 pm

  
  
  

  What’s up Chris?

  Glad you are back.

  Not football related, but where the hell is Tiger Woods??

  Posted from United States

  

• Romanista sa |  February 11th, 2008 at 12:08 pm

  
  
  

  Oops.

  Non American’s only

  My bad

  Posted from United States

  

• adam |  February 11th, 2008 at 12:40 pm

  
  
  

  chris, is this how much they make a year? gerrard makes 8 million pounds a year on his contract?

  Posted from United States

  

• chris |  February 11th, 2008 at 12:45 pm

  
  
  

  Ah, I meant to throw in this paragraph from the original link:

  Sources: salaries, winnings and bonus figures from players’ associations, tour records, agents and news reports. Endorsement estimates from Burns Entertainment & Sports Marketing, other sports-marketing executives and analysts, and agents. Salaries based on current or most recently completed seasons (exception: 2007 for NFL). For winnings-based sports (auto racing, golf, tennis), 2006 calendar year amounts used.

  Posted from United States

  

• Brian |  February 11th, 2008 at 1:06 pm

  
  
  

  What I love about this is that none of these players even had a particularly good year last year. Del Piero was in Serie B, Terry and Gerard were short of their best, and everyone from Shevchenko on up was either hobbled by injury, aging out of the game, or sitting on a bench somewhere.

  Seriously, football administrators. $190 million well spent.

  Posted from United States

  

• Shane |  February 11th, 2008 at 1:17 pm

  
  
  

  6 play IN the US. SI is retarded. and Tiger plays golf in his spare time.

  Posted from United States

  

• Fetyani |  February 11th, 2008 at 1:55 pm

  
  
  

  Ronaldo $19m for only for 16 games, and only 9 goals. now lets here that saying that money doesnt come to you without hard work.

  Posted from Canada

  

• Lucas |  February 11th, 2008 at 2:03 pm

  
  
  

  what is the difference between “motor sports” and “auto racing”?

  Posted from United States

  

• tito |  February 11th, 2008 at 5:06 pm

  
  
  

  2 wheels

  Posted from United States

  

• roswitha |  February 12th, 2008 at 11:58 am

  
  
  

  “Probably the best earnings from a Serie B athlete ever.”

  SPORFLE.

  Posted from India

  

• mootasha |  April 2nd, 2008 at 10:06 am

  
  
  

  this yo giiirl mootasha!
  i dont be likin these sports they be wack
  i be thinking i deserve that cash money
  shoooot boi

  love always yo girl mootasha

  Posted from United States

  

• babaloni |  April 2nd, 2008 at 10:11 am

  
  
  

  all these moneys is giving me what you say… the hebe jebies? you know i am from zembabway and i whant to no more about these fine american sports!

  Posted from United States

  

Comments are closed