Sportico.com is an American portal focusing on the business aspect of sports. The ranking in question takes into account both contracts in clubs in the case of team sports and performance awards for individual athletes, as well as revenues from sponsorship agreements and marketing cooperation.
Robert Lewandowski was ranked 96th on this list. The Pole was supposed to earn a total of $38 million – the contract with FC Barcelona provided him with $26 million, and the rest was the result of his commercial cooperation.
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The 37-year-old sniper shared the position with three other athletes – McLaren F1 driver Oscar Piastri, footballer Cam Ward and baseball player Gerrit Cole.
Cristiano Ronaldo tops the list. His earnings were estimated at $260 million, of which $200 million is guaranteed by his contract at Al-Nassr and the rest from sponsorship revenues.
Also on the podium were the boxer Saul Alvarez, who earned PLN 137 million (PLN 125 million for fights and PLN 12 for cooperation) and another outstanding footballer – Lionel Messi. According to sportico.com, the Argentine’s account received PLN 130 million – PLN 60 million is his salary at Inter Miami, and the rest is advertising contracts.
The group of the hundred best-paid athletes included players from eight disciplines and 28 countries. Their total earnings amounted to $6.05 billion. The top hundred are made up exclusively of men. Sportico.com reports that the American tennis player Coco Gauff earned the most among women in 2025. It was $31 million – $6.7 million less than OG Anunoby, a basketball player for the NBA’s New York Knicks, who closed the list.
Below is the top ten of the sportico.com ranking.
- Cristiano Ronaldo (football, Al-Nassr) – $260 million.
- Saul Alvarez (boxing) – $137 million.
- Lionel Messi (soccer, Inter Miami) – $130 million.
- Juan Soto (baseball, New York Mets) – $129.2 million.
- LeBron James (basketball, Los Angeles Lakers) – $128.7 million.
- Karim Benzema (football, Al-Ittihad) – $115 million.
- Stephen Curry (basketball, Golden State Warriors) – $105.4 million.
- Shohei Ohtani (baseball, Los Angeles Dodgers) – $102.5 million.
- Kevin Durant (basketball, Houston Rockets) – $100.8 million.
- Jon Rahm (golf) – 108.7 million.
