Yet another laurel to Ronaldo's crown. CR7 becomes the first footballer to top the Forbes magazine list for the highest paid sports star, beating Barcelona's Lionel Messi into second place. Cristiano was ranked first after earning $88m (£61m) last year, followed by Messi earning $81.4m and Cleveland Cavaliers basketballer LeBron James with $77.2m. It’s only the second time an athlete from a team sport has topped Forbes’ list since it began ranking sports earnings in 1990, the first being the most popular basketball player Michael Jordan.
Floyd Mayweather or Tiger Woods topped the list since 2011. This is the first time a sports star has been placed at the top spot, according to Forbes.
Mayweather was named the highest-paid athlete in 2015, mainly because of the pay packet he received following his fight with Manny Pacquiao. To the surprise, despite retiring and having only fought once last year, Mayweather still earned $44m and was placed 16th in the top 100 list.
Tennis legend Roger Federer bagged fourth position in the list with $67.8m. A massive $60m of this amount comes from endorsements for the 34-year-old, with Federer failing to win a Grand Slam during 2015. Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City Thunder basketballer, came in fifth place with $56.2m.
The highest-placed Briton to appear on the list is Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, at 11th place with earnings of $46m. Real Madrid's Gareth Bale is at 25th position and is the highest-paid British footballer with $35.9m last year. Manchester United's Wayne Rooney got into the top 50 in 49th position after earning $26.1m.
Highest paid female athlete is none other than Serena Williams at 40th in the list with $28.9m, but the tennis icon is still way behind many of her male stars.
Baseball players appear the most in the top 100 stars list with 26 of them, and Clayton Kershaw is the highest-paid at 33 with $32 million. NFL (21 ), NBA (18) and football (12) are the next most prevelant sports.
The top 100 highest-paid sports stars in the world earned a total of $3.15bn in total over the past 12 months, slightly below last year's record total of $3.22bn.
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