Federer, Nadal, Sharapova Makes Forbes Highest Paid Athletes of 2011
Given the difficult global economic climate the past few years, it’s impressive the way the professional tennis world and its tournaments and players have managed to not only continue playing with relatively few problems, but actually even earn more money each
year! Therefore, in many ways, it’s not that surprising that Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova have all made the Forbes 2011 List of the Highest Paid Athletes. The Forbes list factors in income from salaries, bonuses, prize money, appearance fees and endorsement income during the past year.
Tiger Woods remains atop the list with $75 million in overall earnings while NBA star, Kobe Bryant, is a distant second with $53 million. In fact, there are more NBA stars than athletes from any other sport on the list, 15 basketball players in all. Roger Federer, 29, is in fourth place with $47 million in total earnings including endorsements from Nike, Wilson, Rolex and Credit Suisse. Rafael Nadal, 25, is twelfth on the list with $31.5 million which includes over $10 million in on-court prize money during the past year. Maria Sharapova, 24, pulled in $24.2 million, twenty-ninth on the Forbes list, which includes her off-court endorsements such as her deal with Cole Haan for which she receives royalties on sales of the line of shoes and bags that she designed. Now it will be interesting to see if newly-crowned Wimbledon champion and current World Number One, Novak Djokovic, can crack the list in the future...
Tiger Woods remains atop the list with $75 million in overall earnings while NBA star, Kobe Bryant, is a distant second with $53 million. In fact, there are more NBA stars than athletes from any other sport on the list, 15 basketball players in all. Roger Federer, 29, is in fourth place with $47 million in total earnings including endorsements from Nike, Wilson, Rolex and Credit Suisse. Rafael Nadal, 25, is twelfth on the list with $31.5 million which includes over $10 million in on-court prize money during the past year. Maria Sharapova, 24, pulled in $24.2 million, twenty-ninth on the Forbes list, which includes her off-court endorsements such as her deal with Cole Haan for which she receives royalties on sales of the line of shoes and bags that she designed. Now it will be interesting to see if newly-crowned Wimbledon champion and current World Number One, Novak Djokovic, can crack the list in the future...
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