Baku, February 13, AZERTAC

Last week, Cristiano Ronaldo turned 40 years old—an age when most athletes have long hung up their cleats, sneakers, tennis rackets or boxing gloves, according to Sportico. Instead, the Portuguese soccer star played in his record sixth European Championship last year and became the first men’s player to score 900 career goals.

He’s the world’s highest-paid athlete for the second straight year, with $260 million in earnings, including $215 million from his Saudi Pro League club Al Nassr and $45 million off the field. You can see the full list of the 100 highest-paid athletes here.

Pro sports are a young man’s game, but Ronaldo is part of a growing trend of athletes maintaining elite levels of conditioning and performance much longer than previous generations. It allows them to command sky-high salaries, in addition to the endorsement earnings driven by years in the spotlight with established brands and followings.

The very top earners are all on the back nine of their careers, with 33-year-old Neymar the lone athlete under 36 among the eight highest-paid athletes in the world in 2024. Rounding out the top five after Ronaldo are Stephen Curry ($153.8 million), Tyson Fury ($147 million), Lionel Messi ($135 million) and LeBron James ($133.2 million). James, like Ronaldo, also just turned 40.

Young or old, star athletes are making more than ever, fueled by blockbuster TV contracts pushing salary caps higher and an influx of money from Saudi Arabia triggering bigger paydays in soccer, boxing, golf and tennis.

Overall, the top 100 earned an estimated $6.2 billion total, up 14% from last year’s list of the highest-paid sportsmen. And once again it is just sports men—women were shut out of the top 100 for the second straight year. The cutoff was quarterback Daniel Jones at $37.5 million; last year’s cutoff was $32.5 million. Tennis’ Coco Gauff was the highest-paid female athlete in 2024 at $30.4 million, by Sportico’s count.

Athletes from eight sports and 27 countries made the cut. Salaries, bonuses and prize money represented $4.8 billion of the total, while endorsements and other sources of earnings were an additional $1.4 billion.

Almost all athletes rely on their playing salaries for the bulk of their income, with Brian Burns ($43.9 million), Jacob deGrom ($40.3 million) and Anthony Rendon ($38.3 million) on one extreme with more than 99% of their income from their team salary.

There were 10 athletes who made more from sponsors than salaries or prize money with Shohei Ohtani ($72.5 million) and Tiger Woods ($62.1 million) the biggest outliers. Ohtani’s unique contract includes $680 million in deferred money and a salary of $2 million last year; he also made $477,441 from MLB’s postseason bonus pool after the Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series. Yet, the Japanese star made an estimated $70 million off the field, behind only Curry, James and Messi. Woods’ $84,000 in prize money represented just 0.14% of his total earnings; his winnings also include a $10 million bonus for finishing first in the PGA Tour's Player Impact Program (PIP).

Ronaldo has earned at least $100 million for eight straight years, and 2024 marked the second straight at $200 million-plus. The haul pushed his career earnings to more than $1.8 billion since his pro debut for Sporting CP in 2002. Ronaldo continues to be a popular pitchman; he works with a dozen brands, including Nike, Herbalife, Altice and Binance. The brands benefit from his status as the world's most followed person on social media—his follower count topped 1 billion last year led by his 649 million Instagram followers. In August, he launched a YouTube channel that already has 74 million subscribers.

Ronaldo’s annual paychecks were supersized with his move to Saudi Arabia’s soccer league in December 2022. The influence of Saudi money is evident throughout the top 100. Other soccer players on the list who played in Saudi Arabia last year include Neymar, Karim Benzema ($116 million), Riyad Mahrez ($52 million) and Sadio Mané ($45.5 million). Messi turned down a massive offering from the Saudi league but still benefits via a $25 million endorsement deal for Saudi Arabia's tourism authority.

Boxers Fury and Oleksandr Usyk ($122 million) earned an estimated $260 million combined for their two fights in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 2024. In October, tennis stars cashed in at the Six Kings Slam exhibition as the six players were guaranteed seven-figure appearance fees, and Jannik Sinner ($52.3 million) won the event and pocketed $6.5 million total.