Infographic: How Footballers Compare To Other Top Paid Sports Stars

With the billions being pumped into football from television deals with the likes of Sky and BT, football player’s earnings have sky-racketed in recent years leading to criticism of the amount of money they’re paid for ‘just kicking a ball about a pitch on a Saturday afternoon’.

However, how do footballers compare against stars from other top sports? Here we have an interesting infographic created by the guys at LottoLand – a leading betting site who also produce editorial content – which looks at how much the world’s leading sports stars earn each year based on salary’s and what they generate from sponsorship deals.

The highest grossing footballer on the planet is Real Madrid super star Cristiano Ronaldo who takes home $79.6m (£51.3m), with the majority ($52.6m/£33.9m) coming from his footballing activity and a further $27m (17.4m) earned through lucrative endorsement deals with the likes of Nike, Samsung and TAG.

Lionel Messi – arguably the world’s greatest ever player – isn’t far behind with total earnings of $73.8m (£47.6m) with $51.8m (£33.4m) being earned through football and a further $22m (£14.2m) via sponsorship deals with Pepsi, Adidas and EA Sports.

How does the Premier League stack up against these two giants? Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil is chosen as an example and the German international earns a total of $19.3m (£12.45m), which is a staggering amount to you and I, but it’s dwarfed by the numbers Ronaldo and Messi earn.

But how do the leading footballers compare to other sporting super stars? Pretty well actually, as according to this infographic, Ronaldo and Messi are the two highest earning individuals in sport.

Basketball star Lebron James comes close at $68.4m, Rodger Federer earns $67m while Tiger Woods is a little further back at $50.6m – although the out-of-form golfer earned just $600,000 in winnings and an incredible $50m in sponsorship deals!

There are plenty of other examples to look at so check out the infographic below: