Research carried out by Find Betting Sites suggest that 2021 witnessed the top 100 highest paid athletes earn a whopping $4.2 billion. The research suggests that the athletes have earned this money from multiple sources and, interestingly, not just from playing matches or winning games. Around $2.9 billion was earned directly from a combination of salary money and cash earned from winnings, such as placing highly in tournaments. On the other hand, around $1.3 billion was earned by playing the game of business outside of the ring, which includes endorsements and other non-salary- and winnings-related earnings. An example of this is Conor McGregor, who topped the list this past year, who is set to earn around $170 million from the sale of his Irish whiskey company.
This year, the controversy has appeared as a result of more athletes becoming entrepreneurial, and even though this itself is not an issue, it arguably skews the rankings in terms of individuals and their money making performance. Research by Find Betting Sites suggests that McGregor topped the list, earning a crazy $208 million, which clears Lionel Messi, the second highest paid athlete in the world, who earned $126 million. If you were not to take into account McGregor’s money moves in the business world, his earnings for this year would be closer to somewhere around $40 million; and although this is still an insane sum – which would place him in the top 100 regardless! – this may, according to some, overstate his position as a money making machine in terms of solely being an ‘athlete’, as opposed to whatever he earned in and off the Octagon.
So, on the one hand, this the top earning athlete may be someone else, for example Lionel Messi, if you take into account money earned from non-business ventures, or at least sources more directly related to sports as opposed to reputation (which strongly fuelled McGregor’s business).
On the other hand, athletes – who are equally celebrities, businessmen and more – strike insane sports deals, business deals and other deals from time to time, so that these insane earnings aren’t necessarily sustainable (as McGregor won’t be selling huge companies year after year). Therefore, it is not an irregular occurrence for the top highest earner in sports to be a completely different person, and for the whole list of 100 athletes to be extremely volatile year in year out as athletes secure lucrative deals or liquidate investments from time to time.
With more athletes becoming celebrities in the way of social media, they are also able to leverage this audience to score bigger and better deals for themselves. Therefore the trend of more athletes also becoming social media influencers and therefore businesspeople will not slow down, if anything, more athletes will continue to use social media to their advantage. Perhaps soon we will see the top 100 list of athletes and their earnings not be a combination of the world’s “best” as it may have been in the past, but actually the list may contain more ‘bigger’ athletes, who have a huge online following and therefore can create successful business ventures, be a figure of inspiration, as well as, of course, be a big-time player in their selected sport.
In conclusion
To conclude, it is important to consider the problems of creating highest earner lists for athletes when an increasing amount of income is earned from off the field. Whereas there is no problem with athletes earning money in whichever way they want, the list may soon become more of a celebrity contest of businesspeople rather than athletes.
