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World’s Most Expensive Athletes in 2022

If a particular sport is the biggest globally, it doesn’t always mean that its players will have the biggest salaries. Golf was on top of the list for a while when Tiger Woods was in his peak career, but still, some people earned more. This has changed in the past few years, and a lot of soccer players are making more than some clubs are worth in other sports.

Bookies and casinos are one of the most expensive industries in the world, and their favorite sport is soccer. While you are playing on the point spread, they are making sponsorships with the players you bet on. This is one of the reasons why it has some of the most expensive athletes in the world.

Lebron James – Basketball

When it comes to earnings, there are two separate ways a player makes money. The first income comes from the club, and the second refers to everything off-field. When you look at his earnings on the field, it’s about $40 million, but when you add the $80 million that he gets from other sponsors, you get a sum of $120 million per year.

In the past couple of years, he made a lot of money from one-time projects like the movie Space Jam. He also invested in a few companies and has his own shows on HBO, YouTube, and other platforms.

Lionel Messi – Soccer

For many football fans, Messi is the best player of all time, which helped him make a lot of money. Only his Adidas sponsorship lands him $20 million per year, but there are also other brands like Pepsi and Budweiser supporting him. Christiano Ronaldo earned a lot more than Messi back in 2013 when he was considered the best player in the world.

When French club PSG signed Messi, his earnings went up, and the on-field earnings became bigger than off-field. From the sport, he’s earning around $80 million and around $50 million from other investments and sponsorships.

Floyd Mayweather

Floyd has become very popular for a short amount of time because of his attitude towards the boxing sport. One of the smart moves he made is the value he brought on himself, so he won’t accept fights that don’t bring him $100 million or more. Even if he’s almost a billion, he doesn’t have a monthly income like soccer or basketball players.

He barely made some money in 2022, but he had to be on the list considering how well he’s managed his financial situation in the past years. Even after going to retirement, he can come back and fight anyone for at least $30 million.

Roger Federer

Roger was making a fortune while he was on top of the ATP list, but Novak Djokovic took everything that Roger could win. He became old but was also satisfied with what he did for the sport, so we can expect that he will retire soon. In 2022, he only made $700K from the tournaments, but he is one of the most paid athletes when it comes to sponsorships.

He is a part of a Swiss shoe company that raised over $600 million after its release in 2019. His biggest supporter is Rolex which lands $90 million combined with other sponsors. Only Ronaldo could get to these numbers, but 2022 wasn’t his year.

The Reality Of Players’ Value

The value of any player in any sport isn’t determined by only his talent and capability. This has a lot to do with his personality and exposure. Paul Pogba and Mario Balotelli were some of the biggest transfers in their best seasons, but a lot of managers consider them bad boys, which helped increase their value.

It’s hard for other sports to get the same sponsorships like soccer, so you can expect the players to earn more. Even the managers have some amazing earnings, like Pep Guardiola, who earns around $400K per week. Everything depends on how many people are watching the sport and how big the industry is.

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