Sports Money Race

Top Athlete Salaries

A salary-and-endorsement skyline for the athletes at the top of the annual Forbes earnings table.

Ranked by total earnings Updated 2026 Weekly refresh Sports Titan Park
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Latest ranking

2026

Total earnings
#1 Cristiano Ronaldo 300M
#2 Canelo Álvarez 170M
#3 Lionel Messi 140M
#4 LeBron James 137.8M
#5 Shohei Ohtani 127.6M
#6 Stephen Curry 124.7M
#7 Jon Rahm 107M
#8 Karim Benzema 104M
#9 Kevin Durant 103.8M
#10 Lewis Hamilton 100M

Timeline

Key moments

  • 2012

    LeBron James leads athlete earnings

  • 2019

    Lionel Messi leads athlete earnings

  • 2026

    Cristiano Ronaldo leads athlete earnings

Notes

Methodology

This adapter parses the Wikipedia mirror of Forbes' annual highest-paid athlete tables, including total earnings, salary/winnings, endorsements, sport, and country. The published story keeps the latest top earners as entities and shows their earnings across available annual tables.

Observed Forbes highest-paid athlete tables through 2026. Latest frame mirrors the current top 10 table.

Reference

Sources