Professional athletes have immense earning potential both from their enormous salaries and the lucrative endorsement and sponsorship deals they sign. Elite-level sportspeople draw in crowds at will, and those fans, spectators, and supporters are prepared to spend vast sums of money to watch those athletes in action and to buy apparel and goods associated with their favorite stars.
Some athletes are fortunate and skillful enough to earn superstar status, which sends their earning potential off the charts. Combine being a legend of their chosen sport with an intelligent business mind, and the potential to become a billionaire is very real. Take the top five highest-paid athletes of all time as a singing example. If you adjust their earnings for inflation, those icons have combined earnings of $10.71 billion! Who are those athletes? Continue reading to find out.
Michael Jordan – Basketball – $3.3 billion
Michael Jordan is the highest-earning sports star of all time, with an almost unbelievable $3.3 billion in earnings when accounting for inflation. Once the darling of the National Basketball Association (NBA), seeing Jordan’s name on the Chicago Bulls’ team sheet was enough to have people heading online to claim the best online sportsbook sign up bonus because he was that good of a player.
Although Jordan tops this rich list, he earned “only” $90 million in wages during his 15 seasons in the NBA, representing a mere 4% of his career earnings. Most of Jordan’s incredible earnings stem from his many sponsorship deals, including his long-running partnership with sports apparel giant Nike.
Jordan and Nike joined forces in 1984, and it was a match made in heaven. The Jordan Brand is a separate division of Nike, which generated $5.1 billion in revenue in 2022. It is estimated Jordan has earned $1.8 billion from his Nike deal, including $180 million in 2022 alone.
Tiger Woods – Golf – $2.5 billion
Golfer Tiger Woods is second on the list, with career earnings weighing in at $2.5 billion. Woods, 47, is at the end of his long and illustrious career. Woods has earned more than $121 million in prize money, thanks in part to a record 82 PGA Tour victories, but the bulk of his awe-inspiring earnings come from his endorsement deals and business ventures.
Woods famously turned down nine figures to switch allegiance from the PGA Tour to the controversial LIV Golf, yet he is still a billionaire and then some. During his 27-year career, Woods has earned a fortune from Nike, Rolex, Monster Energy, and TaylorMade and was the face of the Tiger Woods PGA Tour video game from 1999 through 2013.
Arnold Palmer – Golf – $1.7 billion
The late Arnold Palmer earned a staggering $1.7 billion, including inflation, during his professional golf career, with a significant percentage of that sum being made once Palmer hung up his clubs and retired.
Palmer dominated the sport during the 1960s, winning six of his seven majors during the Swinging 60s. Palmer turned professional in 1954 and did not retire from competitive golf until 2006, only ten years before his death. Although Palmer banked plenty of prize money as a golfer, how he put his expertise to good use away from the course saw him amass a fortune.
His diverse golf-related businesses included owning the Bay Hill Club and Lodge in Florida, helping to found The Golf Channel, and forming Palmer Course Design. Palmer’s company designed more than 300 golf courses in 37 states, 25 countries, and five continents, including the first-ever modern course built in China. It is reported that Palmer was earning $40 million per year in endorsements at the time of his death in 2016.
Jack Nicklaus – Golf – $1.63 billion
Jack Nicklaus’ $1.63 billion in inflation-adjusted earnings ranks him fourth in the all-time rich list. Nicklaus turned professional in 1961 and instantly became one of golf’s greatest-ever players. He won 73 PGA Tour events and 18 majors. Nicklaus’ first major victory came in 1962 when he won the U.S. Open. His last came 24 years later in the 1986 Masters Tournament.
Nicklaus earned most of his fortune from his golf course designing company. Nicklaus Design has designed and built 425 courses worldwide, each costing a small fortune to develop.
A highly generous man, “The Golden Bear” has several charities and foundations that he set up to help underprivileged children from the United States and around the world.
Cristiano Ronaldo – Soccer – $1.58 billion
Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the greatest soccer players of all time, and the iconic teams that he has played for during his 21-year career have paid him handsomely. Ronaldo earned €720 million in wages between 2010 and 2019 and recently put pen to paper on a two-year deal with Saudi Arabian team Al-Nassr that will make him $200 million. If you break down Ronaldo’s salary, it equates to $22,000 every hour.
Ronaldo remains one of sports’ most marketable players despite being 38. His massive social media following allows him to charge over $3.2 million for a single Instagram post. The Portuguese star’s once-in-a-generation ability and skills have helped him earn $1.58 billion.
Other Honorable Mentions
Although these are the five highest-earning athletes of all time, there is not much difference between Cristiano Ronaldo in fifth and the rest of the top ten. NBA star LeBron James occupied sixth place with $1.53 billion, while Argentinian soccer superstar and arguably the greatest soccer player to have lived, Lionel Messi, is seventh with $1.48 billion.
Retired boxer Floyd Mayweather has earned $1.41 billion. Mayweather benefited from massive pay-per-view deals that became prominent during the second half of his career; the unbeaten former champion now makes money from his boxing promotor business.
Tennis legend Roger Federer and golf’s Phil Mickelson round out the top ten with earnings of $1.38 billion and $1.36 billion, respectively. Federer earned over $130 million in prize money during a 24-year career, with deals with Mercedes-Benz, Rolex, Gillette, and Credit Suisse bolstering those earnings.
Today’s athletes are on a path to unfathomable riches from the enormous salaries they command for being the best in their field and companies using them as influencers for marketing purposes. With the money being thrown about in the modern sports world, the top ten earning athletes will likely change within the next couple of years.
