Top paid athletes by country

[DBR]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=6391145

183 countries listed.

I'm surprised to see how much money auto racers make!

And I'd like to point out, the NY Mets play three players as much money as the current salary cap in the NHL!

 

[Roger Wilco]

They are fucking insane

Carlos Tevez EPL, Manchester City $19,000,000
Yaya Toure EPL, Manchester City $18,200,000

Lots of baseball players on the list, I didn't know the MLB pays that well.

 

[clint g]

Alex Rodriguez, 32 MILLION dollars

It really isn't a shock that MLB pays so much, the baseball season is alot longer than any of the other American sports, clocking in at over 160 games.

 

[Canadave]

^ And it's also the only major North American league with no real salary cap, so it all adds up.

 

[clint g]

^ And it's also the only major North American league with no real salary cap, so it all adds up.

Indeed. Combine that with how willing Americans are to part with money for the sake of entertainment and you get people with 32 million dollar salaries

Now whether these people are worthy of their massive incomes is another story

 

[iguana_tonante]

Funny, Italy's top earner is not a soccer player but Valentino Rossi, the only motorcycle rider in the list.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Well, unless I missed something the highest paid soccer player in that list is Ronaldo with 19.5 million, which is less than Rossi and anyway at the moment there aren't any Italian soccer stars that big. I'm sure if you looked at a top100 best paid Italian athletes there would be lots of soccer players on it.

I think the list, while interesting, is flawed insofar as it seems to only look at salary and price money, but that isn't all the income of a professional athlete these days. For example, I'm certain Usain Bolt earned far more in endorsement deals than the 2.6 million the best-paid Jamaican on the list made.

And why do the two best-paid North Korean athletes both earn exactly $619107?

 

[iguana_tonante]

You're right, but given our collective frenzy about football, I thought I would find Del Piero, Totti or some other famous footballer at the top of the list.

 

[Roger Wilco]

You are pretty crazy about Formula1 and motorcycle racing too though.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Well, truth to be told, we are pretty crazy in general.

 

[Pingfah]

Holy shit, Lewis Hamilton gets paid $18,000,000 a year?!!!!!

Wow, I thought F1 drivers would be well paid, but that is completely insane.

 

[DBR]

I wonder if Santosh Sahukhala of Nepal has seen this list.

 

[DeafPoet]

And I'd like to point out, the NY Mets play three players as much money as the current salary cap in the NHL!

Wow, the Mets are so crazy that somehow the top earning Canadian isn't a hockey player! They're paying Jason freaking Bay $18M?!

 

[Canadave]

^ I think Justin Morneau's $14 million\season would still beat out any contract in the NHL.

 

[DeafPoet]

^ I think Justin Morneau's $14 million\season would still beat out any contract in the NHL.

You're prolly right. I have strong opinions about salaries in MLB tho. I think they should be much less, for starters.

 

[Count Zero]

Wow, the salaries in football (soccer) seem to have gone up considerably since I stopped caring much about club football. 14 millions for Ribéry? And Manchester City spends more on two top players than Bundesliga clubs used to have for their whole team. Crazy.
Also, why did they use the names of the football leagues for some countries, but not for others? Süper Lig (best league name ever) and Eredivisie (honour division) sounding too shabby or what?
I'm surprised Dirk Nowitzki earns more than Michael Schumacher, to be honest.

 

[Roger Wilco]

^^
I just read yesterday that Real Madrid's average salary is 7.4 million $ or something like that, and Barcelona not far behind...

eta: ah, no, I misremembered, Barcelona is ahead of Real -> BBC

 

[Canadave]

^ I think Justin Morneau's $14 million\season would still beat out any contract in the NHL.

You're prolly right. I have strong opinions about salaries in MLB tho. I think they should be much less, for starters.

Definitely. Baseball salaries have gotten way out of hand, and there's far too much disparity in that league. Though, much as it's needed, I think trying to implement a hard salary cap would go even worse than it did in the NHL, unfortunately.

 

[Roger Wilco]

The thing with financial disparity is, that it primarily bothers supporters of clubs with less money; I doubt you'll hear the Yankees complaining about it.
And most of the time the rich clubs have a disproportionate amount of power too.

 

[RAMA]

They are fucking insane

Carlos Tevez EPL, Manchester City $19,000,000
Yaya Toure EPL, Manchester City $18,200,000

Lots of baseball players on the list, I didn't know the MLB pays that well.

I think baseball and basketball players are the highest avg paid athletes in the world...I'm talking top to bottom. No doubt soccer and auto racing are close.

RAMA