Forbes Researchs Sports Athlete Income “LIV Transfer” jumped to second place.
Soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) has made the most money among sports stars around the world in the past year, according to the survey.
Ronaldo earned 260 million dollars (about 351 billion won) for a year from May 1 last year to rank No. 1 in the 2024 World Sports Player Income Rankings released by the U.S. economic magazine Forbes on the 16th (Korea Standard Time). In other words, they earn about 960 million won per day and 40 million won per hour.
Ronaldo also topped the list in six years with $136 million in last year’s survey. Forbes estimated that Ronaldo earned about $60 million in sponsorship income such as sports brand Nike and cryptocurrency exchange Binance, with an annual salary of $200 million in Al Nasr, Saudi Arabia’s professional football.
Jon Rahm (Spain), who moved to LIV Golf in December last year, ranked second with 218 million dollars (295 billion won). Coincidentally, both Ronaldo and Lam ranked first and second in imports side by side with the support of Saudi Arabian capital. Lionel Messi (Argentina), who plays for Major League Soccer (MLS) Inter Miami, ranked third with 135 million dollars, while two NBA stars, LeBron James (USA) and Yannis Yadetokounmpo (Greece), ranked fourth ($128 million) and fifth ($111 million), respectively.
Soccer stars Kylian Mbappe (France, $110 million), Neymar (Brazil, $108 million), Karim Benzema (France, $106 million), NBA star Stephen Curry ($102 million), and Lamar Jackson ($101 million), the NFL’s annual salary king, ranked 6th to 10th. It is the first time in history that all of the top 10 players have exceeded $100 million (135 billion won) since counting the income rankings of sports athletes. Their total income of $1.38 billion (1.86 trillion won) also broke the record high (1.11 billion dollars) recorded last year.
