Forbes magazine in the United States has released its
2007 "The World's 25 Top-Earning Athletes" list. Golfer, Tiger Woods, tops the list with $100 million in earnings. Unfortunately,
tennis lagged golf on yet another
"money list" with only
Federer and
Sharapova making the cut compared to golf which had four athletes, i.e. #1 Tiger Woods with $100 million ($13 million in prize money and $87 million), #18 Vijay Singh with $25 million and #20 Arnold Palmer who still earned $25 million at age 78! Number one ranked, Roger Federer, is listed in the thirteenth slot on the list with $29 million in earnings last year. Nor surprisingly, Russian two-time Grand Slam champion, Maria Sharapova, also made the list in 25th place. Sharapova earned $23 million last year through prize money and off-court endorsements from companies such as Nike, Prince, Canon, Motorola, Colgate-Palmolive. Surprisingly, Sharapova was actually the only female athlete to make the list which is a sad commentary on the earnings of the top female athletes across the globe. The American team sports were represented on
the list. The NBA had the most athletes on the list with 7 players while the NFL and MLB each had only two athletes who made the cut. One major difference between the 2004 Top-Earning Athletes list and the 2007 version is that in 2004 only three of the athletes came from outside the United States. In 2007, there were nine foreign athletes on the list. Given the global nature of professional tennis and the prominence of women's professional tennis, it is disappointing that only two tennis players made the list in 2007.
