All from one fight too…
Ireland’s Conor McGregor was the fourth highest earning athlete in the world in the past 12 months, making a whopping $99 million.
His opponent from his most recent fight, Floyd Mayweather, tops the list, having made a ridiculously high $285 million. Mayweather won the boxing bout that the two had in August, stopping McGregor in the 10th round.
Lionel Messi came in at second with $111 million, ahead of his rival Cristiano Ronaldo who will have to settle for third, having only made $108 million this year. Poor fella.
Brazilian football star Neymar completes the top five with $90 million, largely due to his recent transfer from Barcelona to PSG.
NBA legend Lebron James was the highest earning basketball player making a tidy $85.5 million.
The list is made up of the athlete’s earnings from 1 June 2017 – 1 June 2018 – so McGregor and Mayweather’s fight qualifies them by just over two months.
The Dublin fighter has not fought since, so it’s not looking good for next year’s list, but we wouldn’t be one bit surprised to hear he has a few tricks up his sleeve. He normally does.
Here’s the top 10 in total.
- Floyd Mayweather – boxing ($285m)
- Lionel Messi – football ($111m)
- Cristiano Ronaldo – football ($108m)
- Conor McGregor – mma ($99m)
- Neymar – football ($90m)
- LeBron James – basketball ($85,5m)
- Roger Federer – tennis ($77.2m)
- Stephen Curry – basketball ($76.9m)
- Matt Ryan – American football ($67.3m)
- Matthew Stafford – American football ($59.5m)
If you’re interested in demoralising yourself even further, you can see a list of the 100 richest athletes here.
