- Ronaldo overtakes Mayweather to becoming highest earning athlete. The Real Madrid footballer took home an estimated $56m in salary and a further $32m in endorsements – $88m in total.
- The striker topped Forbes’ annual list of top earning athletes (released on June 8th, 2016), beating Barcelona striker Lionel Messi who earned $81.4m, and basketball player LeBron James, who earned $77.2m.
- It is the first time since 2001 that an athlete other than Floyd Mayweather or golfer Tiger Woods has topped the list.
- Floyd Mayweather remains on the top-earning list despite only fighting once in the past year.
- Phil Mickelson is the highest-earning golfer on the list with a salary of $2.9m directly from golf and about $50m from sponsorship deals.
- Tiger Woods who remains 12th on the list, despite losing form since 2009, earned just $300,000 from golf winnings, but a whopping $45m from endorsement deals with companies including Nike and Titleist.
- However, tennis superstar Roger Federer earned more in endorsements than any other athlete, with nearly a staggering $60m, in addition to about $7.8m from tennis winnings.
- Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are the only football players in the top 20, a list dominated by US sportsmen.
- There are 13 Americans in the list, including American football quarterbacks Cam Newton and Tom Brady.
- As in 2015, no woman made it to this year’s top 20 list.
Source: Forbes
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