The world’s highest-paid athletes have earned billions of dollars through heavy contracts and jaw-dropping endorsement deals throughout their professional careers. Despite the fluctuations, their annual earnings have practically doubled over the past decade, reaching a record-breaking $1.37 billion in 2024 alone. This surge has pushed their 10-year cumulative earnings to shocking highs.
According to data presented by Betideas.com, the world’s highest-paid athletes have raked in over $10.2 billion in the past ten years.
Football Players Top with $3.2 Billion in Ten-Year Earnings, Basketball Follows with $2.5 Billion
The sports industry has immense financial power, and athletes` earnings prove this. Thanks to their rising fame, their bank balances skyrocket, with annual records consistently broken. According to Forbes, the world’s ten highest-paid athletes earn much more money today than they did ten years ago, and this difference is shocking.
In 2014, the combined earnings of the top ten, including Floyd Mayweather, Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James, Lionel Messi, Kobe Bryant, and Tiger Woods, totaled over $642 million. Mayweather topped the list that year with an impressive $105 million in total earnings.
A year later, the ten highest-paid athletes collectively earned more than $900 million, largely due to Mayweather’s massive $300 million haul. After dipping to around $630 million in 2016 and 2017, the combined earnings of the top athletes broke the $1 billion mark for the first time in 2018 and have remained close to that figure ever since. The only exception was 2020, when COVID-19 led to massive sports cancellations, impacting earnings.
In 2021, the top ten names in the sports world cashed in $1.05 billion, a figure that grew to over $1.1 billion last year. Still, 2024 has been a record year, with the combined earnings of the top athletes hitting over $1.3 billion. This represents more than double the amount they were earning just a decade ago, while their cumulative 10-year earnings now exceed $10.2 billion.
Football superstars, led by Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, made one-third of that value, or $3.2 billion. Basketball players follow closely, with over $2.5 billion in earnings across the decade. Statistics show boxing, American football, golf, and tennis round out the list, with $1.14 billion, $1.4 billion, $865 million, and $640 million in ten-year earnings, respectively.
Cristiano Ronaldo is the Only Athlete Who Earned More than $1 Billion in a Decade
Most of the names on Forbes` top ten list are regulars, and Cristiano Ronaldo is one of them. The football superstar has been on top of the sports world ever since his career skyrocketed, and according to Forbes, Ronaldo is the only athlete in the top ten club who earned more than one billion dollars in the past decade.
Thanks to his heavy contract with Al-Nassr and another $65 million from endorsement deals and business ventures, the five-time Ballon d’Or winner cashed in $260 million in 2024 alone, bringing his ten-year total to a staggering $1.06 billion.
Despite being retired for seven years, Floyd Mayweather is the closest rival to Ronaldo, earning $915 million in the past decade. Ronaldo’s longtime competitor, Lionel Messi, ranks third with $885 million in earnings since 2014. LeBron James and Tiger Woods follow, with $808 million and $682 million, respectively.