List of the 100 highest-paid athletes for 2024 has been released and people aren't impressed
Sportico have released their 2024 list of the world's highest-paid athletes, and some readers have deemed it extremely telling.
The digital content company releases the list - which considers the salaries, winnings and endorsements being brought home by the most influential athletes - every year.
Making their announcement, Sportico wrote: "The 100 highest-paid athletes include players from eight sports and 27 countries.
"They earned an estimated $6.2 billion in total income in 2024, including $4.8 billion in salary and prize money, as well as $1.4 billion off the field, court, course or track. (The full methodology for this ranking is below the list.)"
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Topping the list was Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo ($260 million), NBA star Stephen Curry ($153.8m), and British heavyweight boxer Tyson Fury ($147m).
Congrats to all the highest-earners, of course - it's quite the achievement.
But people were quick to spot the list included no female athletes for the second year in a row.
The revelation has certainly rubbed a handful of readers up the wrong way, with many wondering how - in 2025 - there's still an almighty disparity between pay for men and women athletes.
"That’s really not ok," one disgruntled reader wrote on Instagram.
"This is damning," another added.
A third, however, pointed out that the rise in interest in female sports may land some ladies in the list sometime soon.
"In a world where there is rapidly rising popularity of women’s sports, it will be nice to have female athletes on that list in the future," they penned.
Another wrote: "When we start televising women’s sports, in prime time, on mainstream channels, this might change."
Some readers, however, saw no issue with the outcome of the list, pointing a huge proportion of payment allocation is based on the amount of viewers the sport and the players bring in.
"The money goes where the viewership is, period," one hit out.
Another explained: "The truth is, for the most part women's sports do not draw big audiences like men's sports do. So because of that there is an unbalanced pay.
"I do believe that women's tennis has more of an audience than men's tennis and because of that they should be paid more than men in my opinion but you can't say that about other sports because they don't draw the audiences that men's sports do."
Female US tennis champ Coco Gauff narrowly missed out on a place on the list, being the highest-earning women's athlete of last year.
The 20-year-old is estimated to have taken home a staggering $30.4 million - but this still puts her $7 million off 100th placed-male, Daniel Jones.
I guess making history as the youngest Olympic flag bearer for Team USA, becoming the youngest player in 19 years to win both a singles and a doubles Grand Slam title and becoming the fourth American to win at the WTA finals before having turned 21 counts for nothing these days.
*Sighs.*
Full list of 100 highest paid athletes
- 1. Cristiano Ronaldo - $260M
- 2. Stephen Curry - $153.8M
- 3. Tyson Fury - $147M
- 4. Lionel Messi - $135M
- 5. LeBron James - $133.2M
- 6. Neymar - $133M
- 7. Oleksandr Usyk - $122M
- 8. Karim Benzema - $116M
- 9. Kylian Mbappé - $110M
- 10. Jon Rahm - $105.8M
- 11. Scottie Scheffler - $104.3M
- 12. Dak Prescott - $100.4M
- 13. Giannis Antetokounmpo - $97.8M
- 14. Kevin Durant - $93.1M
- 15. Jared Goff - $85.8M
- 16. Jordan Love - $81.6M
- 17. Rory McIlroy - $79.8M
- 18. Max Verstappen - $76M
- 19. Patrick Mahomes - $73.1M
- 20. Canelo Álvarez - $73M
- 21. Shohei Ohtani - $72.5M
- 22. Lewis Hamilton - $60.1M
- 23. Joe Burrow - $70.7M
- 24. Erling Haaland - $70M
- 25. Justin Herbert - $67.6M
- 26. Damian Lillard - $65.8M
- 27. Kirk Cousins - $65M
- 28. Tiger Woods - $62.1M
- 29. Yoshinobu Yamamoto - $61M
- 30. Anthony Joshua - $60M
- 31. Joel Embiid - $58.4M
- 32. Nikola Jokic - $57.5M
- 33. Jimmy Butler - $56.9
- 34. Luka Dončić - $55.9
- 35. Bradley Beal - $55.9
- 36. Paul George - $55.8
- 37. Xander Schauffele - $55.8M
- 38. Mohamed Salah - $55M
- 39. Vinícius Júnior - $55M
- 40. Kawhi Leonard - $54.8M
- 41. Max Scherzer - $54M
- 42. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander - $52.9M
- 43. Jannik Sinner - $52.3M
- 44. Riyad Mahrez - $52M
- 45. James Harden - $51.8M
- 46. Devin Booker - $51.1M
- 47. Zion Williamson - $50.3M
- 48. Kyrie Irving - $49.8M
- 49. Trevor Lawrence - $49M
- 50. Klay Thompson - $48.8M
- 51. Jayson Tatum - $48.6M
- 52. Jake Paul - $48M
- 53. Trae Young - $47.7M
- 54. Travis Kelce - $47.4M
- 55. Aaron Judge - $47.4M
- 56. Aaron Rodgers - $47.2M
- 57. Tyrrell Hatton - $47.1M
- 58. Josh Allen - $47.1M
- 59. Russell Wilson - $47M
- 60. Anthony Davis - $46.9M
- 61. Deshaun Watson - $46.8M
- 62. Anthony Edwards - $46.8M
- 63. Tua Tagovailoa - $46.7M
- 64. Zach LaVine - $46.4M
- 65. Jalen Hurts - $46.1M
- 66. Joaquin Niemann - $45.9M
- 67. Sadio Mané - $45.5M
- 68. Justin Jefferson - $45.3M
- 69. Karl-Anthony Towns - $45.1M
- 70. Justin Verlander - $44.5M
- 71. CeeDee Lamb - $44.3M
- 72. Rudy Gobert - $44M
- 73. Brian Burns - $43.9M
- 74. Donovan Mitchell - $43.8M
- 75. Jaylen Brown - $43.7M
- 76. Jose Altuve - $43.6M
- 77. Ja Morant - $43.2M
- 78. Collin Morikawa - $43.1M
- 79. Fred VanVleet - $42.6M
- 80. Kyler Murray - $42.4M
- 81. Naoya Inoue - $42M
- 82. Harry Kane - $42M
- 83. Pascal Siakam - $42M
- 84. Jrue Holiday - $41.2M
- 85. Ben Simmons - $41M
- 86. Mike Trout - $40.5M
- 87. Carlos Alcaraz - $40.4M
- 88. Jacob deGrom - $40.3M
- 89. Matthew Stafford - $39.5M
- 90. Kevin De Bruyne - $39.5M
- 91. Jamal Murray - $38.9M
- 92. CJ McCollum - $38.7M
- 93. De'Aaron Fox - $38.6M
- 94. Corey Seager - $38.5M
- 95. Gerrit Cole - $38.4M
- 96. Anthony Rendon - $38.3M
- 97. Bryson DeChambeau - $38.2M
- 98. Michael Porter Jr. - $37.7M
- 99. Baker Mayfield - $37.6M
- 100. Daniel Jones $37.5M
Rhianna Benson