Michael Jordan has been crowned the highest-paid athlete of all time by Sportico. Jordan, who was listed as the first billionaire athlete by Forbes back in 2014, is well clear of the pack as well.
1. Michael Jordan – $3.75B (Inflation-Adjusted Earnings)
2. Tiger Woods – $2.66B (Inflation-Adjusted Earnings)
3. Cristiano Ronaldo – $1.92B (Inflation-Adjusted Earnings)
4. Arnold Palmer – $1.76B (Inflation-Adjusted Earnings)
5. LeBron James – $1.7B (Inflation-Adjusted Earnings)
T6. Jack Nicklaus – $1.67B (Inflation-Adjusted Earnings)
T6. Lionel Messi – $1.67B (Inflation-Adjusted Earnings)
8. David Beckham – $1.5B (Inflation-Adjusted Earnings)
9. Roger Federer – $1.49B (Inflation-Adjusted Earnings)
10. Floyd Mayweather – $1.48B (Inflation-Adjusted Earnings)
Even if you don’t count for inflation, the report estimates Jordan’s earnings to be $2.7 billion while Tiger Woods is second at $1.85 billion. He really is miles ahead of everyone else. Jordan’s career earnings in the NBA only amounted to $93.9 million, but he has made a fortune off the court.
In 2023, Jordan became the first professional athlete to join the Forbes 400. It was largely thanks to him selling his majority stake in the Charlotte Hornets for $3 billion, although Sportico has not included that sale in their calculations here. A massive chunk of his earnings has, unsurprisingly, come from Nike.
Jordan is entitled to a 5% royalty on all sales made on his line. With the Jordan brand reportedly generating $6.6 billion in revenue in 2023, it means the Chicago Bulls icon would get a royalty check worth $330 million for the year. At this point, Jordan has earned well over $1 billion from Nike after signing with them back in 1984.
At the time, the company’s annual revenue was $920 million and this past year, it was $51 billion. Their partnership is truly one of the greatest we have ever seen. It has reached the stage now, where Nike is the most popular sneaker brand in the world and Jordan is second.
Two golfers occupied the next three spots under Jordan, with Woods at second and Arnold Palmer at fourth. Soccer legend Cristiano Ronaldo was sandwiched between them at third.
LeBron James then came in at fifth. At the end of this 2023-24 season, James will have earned around $479 million in salaries in the NBA. In 2024-25, he will become the first-ever NBA player to have made over $500 million during their time in the league.
Like Jordan, James has also earned a fair bit from Nike. LeBron signed a 7-year, $87 million deal with the sneaker brand when he entered the NBA in 2003. Then in 2015, Nike gave James a lifetime deal worth approximately $1 billion.
Thanks to Nike and various other successful business ventures, James became just the second NBA player after Jordan to become a billionaire in 2022. LeBron has a long way to go before he catches him though.
While James and Jordan were the only basketball players to make the top 10, two others just missed out. Shaquille O’Neal was ranked 13th with $1.21 billion in inflation-adjusted earnings while the late great Kobe Bryant was 14th with $1.09 billion in inflation-adjusted earnings.
In all, 12 basketball players ended up making the top 50, which was more than any other sport. Also, only one female athlete made it in, Serena Williams.
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