Forbes released its World’s 50 Highest-Paid Athletes list earlier this week with soccer star Lionel Messi topping the list earning $130 million, $75 million on the field, and $55 million off. Brett Knight, a senior editor for SportsMoney at Forbes, joined Cheddar News to break down the latest list featuring a record amount of earnings for athletes in a single year. "Our top 50 athletes made almost $3 billion dollars combined. They were just under three billion. That's up about 200 million from our previous record for the top 50," he said. Knight also noted progress for women with two stars, Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams, cracking the list of fifty after the three previous years featured only men.

Closing Bell

Lionel Messi Tops Record Year for Forbes World's Highest-Paid Athletes List

Okay, well, Forbes and some other news releasing its annual list of the highest paid athletes in sports earlier today and the 121 million that Lebron James made over the past year places him At only second on the list. Coming ahead of Lebron. It was soccer superstar Lionel Messi who amassed a whopping 130 million in the same span of course over there in Europe. Well, joining me now is Brett Knight senior editor of sports money at forms Brett it's great to have you on the show here. So we know Lebron obviously has a huge brand off the court, huge brand in America, but it's the soccer mega stars, three of them overseas messi, Christiano Ronaldo Neymar making some serious bank on and off the field. Just how high are these salaries? Yeah, you're right, those three soccer players, those, those big three uh all make By our estimates at least $60 million 95 million Over the last 12 months according to our estimates, uh placing all three of them in the top four athletes in the world alongside Lebron. And this is the fifth straight year that all three of those soccer players have been in the top six. So they're they're there to stay for sure. Okay, Steph curry rounding out the top five, he was number five. So two NBA stars, I think notable here. It is telling. Obviously, I think in the NBA you can have a bit more of a personality than in other leagues, like the NFL for instance. But were these record numbers this year across the board? I mean, was this the most money that athletes have earned in a single year? Yeah. So our top 50 athletes um made almost $3 billion dollars combined. They were just under three billion. That's up About 200 million from our previous record for the top 50. And I think even perhaps even more notable, those top 50 made over a billion combined off the field. So $1.06 billion 12 months just from endorsements and their other business activities. That's also a record. And, you know, notably I think. It's it's about double what they made off the field. The top 50 made off the field 10 years ago. So I have to ask because today was actually a watershed moment when it came to equal pay for women and men in the sport of soccer here in the U. S. The U. S. Women's national team scoring a big win when it comes to international games and receiving that equal salary for equal work. Any women on this list Brett We have two women in the top 50, Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams. Naomi Osaka making about 59 million in our tracking Windows Serena Williams about 45 million. Uh you know, it's it's definitely unfortunate that there's not more women in the top 50, but that's actually an accomplishment uh when you look at the last several years um That both of them made the list last year as well, but the three previous years there were actually no women in the top 50. So this actually, you know, as tough as it is to say, this actually qualifies as a step forward. And so we just want to see, you know, salaries continuing to increase in women's sports and and more marketing dollars coming in so that we can start to see more women on that list as well. Another question that I have for you is Naomi Osaka clearly being very open this past year about needing to take time off from certain competitions to protect her own mental health. Any indication as to how that has impacted her earnings if it has it all. Perhaps when it comes to these endorsements and then of course pay for play. Yeah. You know, I think when Naomi first started um you know, withdrawing from tournaments last year, there was there was some speculation that that that might hurt her earnings. We haven't seen that at all. Um Last year on our list, she had $55 million $58 million. She's managed to add um some some big deals, including a big crypto deal with F. T. X. Uh and you know, some marketing experts think that her outspokenness over the last year with her mental health issues has actually made her more appealing to advertisers. It makes her seem more authentic, more genuine and it's opened up some new categories for her um in the you know, health and wellness space where she can look to sign some new some new marketing deals. So we talked a lot here about obviously soccer stars abroad. Some of the top NBA earners here in America Lebron Steph curry. What about the NFL who is the top earning player in the NFL? And where does that kind of coalesce around who are some of the top earners in the NFL? So our top earner this year in the NFL is tom brady. He's number nine overall um with about 84 million in earnings but he's a bit of an outlier because the majority of his earnings actually come off the field from his his marketing deals. Um In addition to some of the businesses that he runs like autograph the N. F. T. Company. So with 52 million off the field, he's by far the highest paid NFL player off the field, just behind him on our, on our earnings list is Matthew Stafford in the NFL, he's sort of more typical what you see in the NFL on our earnings list. Uh he has about 72 million in total earnings but about 70 million of that is on the field. And in the NFL with contracts really skewed towards signing bonuses that get paid in one lump sum as opposed to salaries that are, that are annual. You will often see these NFL players pop really high on the list one year and fall off the list the next year. So we will expect that to happen with Stafford next year as his contract shifts into the next phase. Patrick Mahomes in the midst of a very big contract. Do you think that he can be successful here in the years ahead? Absolutely. Uh he has, you know, the the largest contract by total value in team sports uh and he has a, you know, a great set of partners off the field. We have him at 20 million off the field from, from endorsements, appearances, memorabilia, all the other stuff he has going on um that, you know, it may not sound like a ton next to tom brady when tom brady is doing over 50 but that, you know, that's the second best number in the NFL. It it is, you know, in a elite number across the sports world. Um you know, I think one thing that, that sometimes gets lost when we do these earnings list or when people think about athletes earnings is that it's really only these, these top top level stars who can command these seven figure paydays off the field. Most athletes really struggled to uh, to have even a million dollars in earnings from endorsements. And, you know, it's for for pro athletes, it's much more common to see them. You know, do, uh, do an instagram post for for, say, $2000 5000 dollars. It's an accomplishment even to get into six figures. And so for Patrick Mahomes to be doing 20 million that just tells you the kind of appeal he has to advertisers. All right, Brett Knight, senior editor of Sports Money at Forbes, Brett, thanks so much for joining.