The Highest Paid Athlete

[Code Doc]

(1) The highest paid athlete in 2009, all sources of income added together (salary and/or prize winnings, product endorsements, etc.) was who?

(2) Does it look like that he or she will repeat that next year?

Forum, please advise and discuss.

[LaVolpe]

1) The one took the most steroids?
2) Depends on the quality of steroids.

[Code Doc]

1) The one took the most steroids?
2) Depends on the quality of steroids.

I doubt that anymore. True, perhaps three years ago, but I admire your attempt to take this thread to another level.

[mendhak]

Debatable. I did a search and found a Forbes article saying that Tiger Woods is the highest paid athlete. However, this is athlete in the loosest sense of the term. Calling a golfer an athlete is like calling twitter a productivity tool.

[BadgerBadger]

I would have thought it would be a football player (soccer).

[NeedSomeAnswers]

If ignore Golf (as it cant really be counted as a Sport) then it will probably be 1 of this bunch.

David Beckham, Christiano Ronaldo, Kobe Bryant or Kevin Garnett !

[si_the_geek]

A few years ago it was the Hand-Egg player Peyton Manning. (I'm a fan of American Football, but the name irritates me!)

If you ignore product endorsements etc (so it is just salary and prizes), I suspect the highest paid will still be the F1 driver Kimi Raikonnen - even tho he is having a year off (rumours claim he is being paid 'just' 20 million Euros next year, as opposed to 50 million for the last couple of years).

[bflosabre91]

its not aroid? didnt he sign one of the most ridiculous contracts ever recently? like in the past few years

[si_the_geek]

Possibly... according to the unreliable WikiPedia he has the biggest contract (excluding endorsements etc).

There are several issues about that list tho, including:

• It is contract only, so excludes single-player events like Tennis, Golf, etc
• It is for the total contract, so it is also spread over many years - thus the payment per year ($27.5m) is lower than other people (up to $51m).
• Many highly paid people wont even make the list simply because their sport generally has shorter contract periods (such as football).
• Many sports don't publish their contract details (including F1 at times, Alonso is rumoured to be on $37m a year now at Ferrari)

While you could argue he is the highest paid based on that list, I would disagree.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

aroid?

i am assuming you meant A Rod, then his contract was $275m over 10 years.

David Beckham for instance has a contract of $250m over 5 years. Although it is difficult to separate Beckham's commercial earning from his footballing ones, as his contract is supposed to include a share of Shirt Sales for instance which could be worth up to $10m a year.

I suspect Si is right in just straight contract terms then it may very well be Kimi Raikonnen although that will change after next year.

[bflosabre91]

f1 racers make that much??? how do they make money? ive never seen a race on tv in my life. is it bigger in other countries? or maybe its a southern thing?


edit: ^^ yes Aroid is a-rod. sorry if i offended you. :P

[NeedSomeAnswers]

f1 racers make that much???

Yep they make that much, not all of them, but those that become multi world champions like Raikonnen, Alonso & Schumacher (7 time champion now retired) make shed loads of money.

how do they make money?

They make money by being paid lots to drive very fast round racing circuits. Also they drive probably the fastest cars certainly in terms of acceleration in the world.

ive never seen a race on tv in my life.

Are you in the US ? then you will probably not have seen it as you have your own Nascar and Indie car series, so F1 racing is not as Big.

is it bigger in other countries?

Oh yes, its bigger in virtually every other country in the world.

F1 hold races around the world in many different countries, here is the 2009 race calendar -

29 March Australia
5 April Malaysia
19 April Bahrain
10 May Spain
24 May Monaco
7 June Canada
21 June Great Britain
28 June France
12 July Germany
26 July Hungary
9 August Turkey
23 August Europe (Valencia)
6 September Italy
13 September Belgium
27 September Singapore
11 October Japan
18 October China
1 November Brazil
15 November Abu Dhabi

[si_the_geek]

In terms of TV viewing figures, F1 is (or at least has been in the last few years) the biggest sporting event worldwide... but of course you need to take into account that all of the teams are in the same 'match', whereas the NFL (apart from the superbowl) has up to 16, and the Olympics has hundreds (or 'just' 30 depending on how the viewing figures are measured).


F1 hasn't been very popular in the US (that may change soon, the USF1 team starts next year) as the motor sport focus is on home-grown championships, which are basically less skilful.

As an indicator, Bourdais dominated Champ Car (he won 4 championships in a row), then moved to F1 and came 17th of 20 in the championship, while his inexperienced replacement team mate (who only drove in 8 races of 18) came 14th. He got replaced by a complete newbie half way thru his second season. This is a bit unfair on Bourdais due to details I haven't mentioned, but based on lots of other drivers who have switched, it isn't too far from what he could have achieved.

Based on G-forces and reaction times etc, F1 drivers get compared to fighter pilots, but the US based series are noticeably lower... perhaps commercial pilots?

[EntityX]

i am assuming you meant A Rod, then his contract was $275 over 10 years.

David Beckham for instance has a contract of $250 over 5 years.

$ 250 over 5 years isn't really that good. Even I have made more than that.

[bflosabre91]

They make money by being paid lots to drive very fast round racing circuits. Also they drive probably the fastest cars certainly in terms of acceleration in the world.

i meant in terms of how does f1 racing bring in enough profits to allow the drivers to make that much. but since u said it huge outside the US, it makes more sense now. i had no idea.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

$ 250 over 5 years isn't really that good. Even I have made more than that.

Yes well give or take $249,999,750

I have now edited my original post :0)

[NeedSomeAnswers]

i meant in terms of how does f1 racing bring in enough profits to allow the drivers to make that much. but since u said it huge outside the US, it makes more sense now.

Ah yes i see what you mean, the global Audience is very big but also a number of large Car manufacturers either own or co-own an F1 team, e.g. Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault and up until recently Toyota and BMW.

It's the Teams that pay the salaries, and from what i gather the Teams do not make much if any money out of the F1 competition itself, the F1 Rights holders make most of the money by charging everyone else a fortune to be in there competition.

The teams do get Global marketing exposure though and often you see innovation that were first trialled in F1 a few years down the line in their road cars.

[si_the_geek]

from what i gather the Teams do not make much if any money out of the F1 competition itself, the F1 Rights holders make most of the money by charging everyone else a fortune to be in there competition.

From what I remember the prize money for the teams (assuming they score at least 1 point in the season) was from about $5m to about $100m.

I presume that is changing now that there will be more teams, and new contracts have been signed (I think the teams will now get a much larger slice of the pie, but still a lower percentage than they would like).

[techgnome]

When I can, I follow F1 and IRL racing... very hard to do so here in the US though (curse you NASCAR!) Although I did find out this past season that IRL is on the Versus network (part of the ESPN group) and F1 was on Speed Network. So now, next spring I'll know where to look for them at (stumbled upon them almost a quarter into the season). For some reason I find them a lot more entertaining than NASCAR. Oh and some GPs too... I'll watch GPs too if I can.

-tg

[demotivater]

I heard during coverage of the recent Tiger Woods car crash that he will likely become the first BILLIONAIRE "athlete". If that's true, that's nuts. That's nuts even if it's not true.

[kleinma]

Golf not a sport?? Spoken like people who have never played it

[si_the_geek]

Golf/snooker/etc require skills, but very little in the way of physical effort - which is why I think of them as games rather than sports. That doesn't mean they aren't good (I enjoy watching snooker), just that calling them sports is debatable.

...and for anyone who is thinking of adding F1 to that list, the drivers spend many hours in the gym each week, and lose several kilos during a race from sweat.

[LaVolpe]

...and for anyone who is thinking of adding F1 to that list, the drivers spend many hours in the gym each week, and lose several kilos during a race from sweat.

I've known overweight ppl that can be classified as elite athletes based on that criteria. Of course "race" is out of context to mean foot race

Some definitions
Sport: an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.
Athlete: a person trained or gifted in exercises or contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength; a participant in a sport, exercise, or game requiring physical skill.

So is poker (the card game) a sport? Its competitive but is it physical? About same amount of physical strength, stamina & agility that pool requires; though pool/billiards is a recognized sport?

What about hot dog eating? Wow, what a sport! Come on!

Maybe Wii will be a recognized sport next year? Can't you see sponsored contests in the future offering cash prizes? One can't argue that Wii can be very physical; even to the point of requiring medical attention.

Well, at least if I play a hand of poker every now and again and eat a hot dog, maybe toss a game of bowling or pool, I can consider myself an athlete. The competition is of course with myself; so not much money in it, but better to be labeled an athlete vs. sloth.

[mendhak]

Working in an office is a sport, considering the amount of backstabbing, beating around the bush and leaping to conclusions we have to do.

[Code Doc]

I heard during coverage of the recent Tiger Woods car crash that he will likely become the first BILLIONAIRE "athlete". If that's true, that's nuts. That's nuts even if it's not true.

I have to agree that Tiger Woods is the highest paid athlete in 2009 and may have been for several years. However, if Titleist and Nike have any brains at all, that will all end.

Tiger, read my lips. Girlfriends are expensive, and it may cost you this as well:
http://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/me...ristensen-155/

Oh, and don't forget to tip the plastic surgeon. Those facial scratches are hard to hide on HD TV.

[EntityX]

I think golf is a genuine sport. It takes an enormous amount of skill to play it at a high level. I've played it enough to know that is true. It may not be as athletic a sport as something like tennis or soccer thus you have players in their mid and upper 40s still competing at a top level but it's definitely a sport.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

Golf/snooker/etc require skills, but very little in the way of physical effort - which is why I think of them as games rather than sports. That doesn't mean they aren't good (I enjoy watching snooker), just that calling them sports is debatable.

Well Said i have to agree Si, This is nothing against Golf/Snooker/Darts/Poker e.t.c but these are games not sports.

They can require great skill, but little physical activity in my opinion you need both to be a sport.

[Code Doc]

I think golf is a genuine sport. It takes an enormous amount of skill to play it at a high level. I've played it enough to know that is true. It may not be as athletic a sport as something like tennis or soccer thus you have players in their mid and upper 40s still competing at a top level but it's definitely a sport.

+1. Golf is a genuine sport. Ted Williams was one of the greatest hitters in baseball of all time but seldom broke 100 on the golf course. Michael Jordan tried to play professional golf and gave up. Ever watch Charles Barkley try to play?

Tiger Woods is both an athlete and a golfer and ranks among the top three who ever played golf. Now he is an embarrassment to golf, worse than anything Fred Couples ever was. Woods did not need help from only an attorney the other day. He needed a psychiatrist.

[mendhak]

Great analogy. I'll bet Ted Williams and Michael Jordan can't write code either.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

Tiger Woods is both an athlete and a golfer

I bet i could beat him in a race !!

[EntityX]

If someone wants to argue that golf is just a game and not a sport that's ok with me. I understand why they would say that. To me it's a sport but to someone else maybe it's not. You can't force your own definition of something to be adopted by others.

NeedSomeAnswers maybe you could beat Tiger Woods in a race and maybe not but it's not likely you would beat him at golf. The top athletes of whatever sport are great in that sport and they may or may not be great at other sports.

I don't think Tiger Woods is an embarrassment to golf. He made some mistakes. I've made tons of mistakes in my life but I'm not in the public spotlight like he is. I pray that we all learn our lessons and awaken from our errors. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

[kleinma]

Soccer has a giant net with 1 guy who is standing in front of it blocking you from kicking a ball about 1/500th the size of the actual goal net...

Golf you have to hit a ball only slightly bigger than the hole you are trying to get it in, with a club...

If golf is not a physical sport, then what is it? a mental exercise?

When a golfer has a physical injury, that can keep them from playing. Things like poker are not in this category, they are no physical requirements, just mental.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

NeedSomeAnswers maybe you could beat Tiger Woods in a race and maybe not but it's not likely you would beat him at golf.

I was attempting to be amusing ...

If Golf is a Sport then Darts is a Sport (have you seen darts players, would you call them atheletes ?) and Snooker and Pool are sports and even Poker is a Sport what about Tiddlywinks i could go on but basically if Golf is a Sport you could argue that any game is a sport.

I am not trying to denigrate Golf here, it just isn't a sport !

[NeedSomeAnswers]

Things like poker are not in this category, they are no physical requirements, just mental.

What about Darts then ? if you injure you arm you cant play, so it has a physical element. Is Darts a Sport ?

[kleinma]

Yup. Of course some sports are more physically enduring than others, and the "if you don't sweat it is not a sport" thing is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. So there are many things I consider to be a sport, regardless if another sport like hockey or football requires you to be bigger and stronger than these other sports.

Hell, Jockeys are athletes and they don't have to do any of the running in their sport..

[techgnome]

Soccer has a giant net with 1 guy who is standing in front of it blocking you from kicking a ball about 1/500th the size of the actual goal net...

Golf you have to hit a ball only slightly bigger than the hole you are trying to get it in, with a club...

If golf is not a physical sport, then what is it? a mental exercise?

When a golfer has a physical injury, that can keep them from playing. Things like poker are not in this category, they are no physical requirements, just mental.

what if a poker player develops hemorrhoids that prevent them from being able to sit at the table?

-tg

[5ms?]

what if a poker player develops hemorrhoids that prevent them from being able to sit at the table?

-tg

You have to physically sit when playing poker?

[System_Error]

Most hockey players play golf in the offseason. Therefore golf must be a sport.

[EntityX]

what if a poker player develops hemorrhoids that prevent them from being able to sit at the table?

-tg

If they were a truly dedicated poker player they could do without a chair and kneel at the table while playing.

[homer13j]

Calling a golfer an athlete is like calling twitter a productivity tool.

John Daly was unavailable for comment.