The highest paid athletes in history: What place do Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo occupy on the list?

The sport moves billions of dollars and year after year the contracts are exceeded. New sponsorship and salary records are set each season, which is why athletes are earning more and more money. This makes it complex to understand who has been the richest of all time, since the figures have varied over time and the numbers that are handled today are far from those that moved two or three decades ago.

In this context, the Sportico site carried out an in-depth study in which it incorporated historical data that includes salaries, awards, bonuses, sponsorships, licenses, royalties, book offers, appearances and all kinds of income that have been disseminated by companies, teams, clubs or through the media, such as Forbes magazine.

He adjusted those numbers for inflation according to the time period to which they belonged and obtained a fairly adequate estimate of how much the best athletes in history earned.

In this way, he produced a ranking of 25 figures that was published this Thursday in which stars such as former basketball player Michael Jordan, former Formula 1 racer Michael Schumacher, footballers Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, golfer Tiger Woods and boxer Floyd Mayweather, among others.

The list of the top 10 paid athletes in history

1. Michael Jordan (basketball): $ 2.62 billion

2. Tiger Woods (golf): $ 2.1 billion

3. Arnold Palmer (golf): $ 1.5 billion

4. Jack Nicklaus (golf): $ 1.38 billion

5. Cristiano Ronaldo (soccer): USD 1.24 billion

6. Floyd Mayweather (boxing): $ 1.2 billion

7. LeBron James (basketball): $ 1.17 billion

8. Lionel Messi (soccer): $ 1.14 billion

9. Michael Schumacher (motorsport): $ 1.13 billion

10. Roger Federer (tennis): $ 1.12 billion