New York Yankee Babe Ruth is considered to be one of the greatest athletes of all time. It didn’t cost much to see the living legend in the early 1930s. Taking someone out to the ball game (at Yankee Stadium) cost 50 cents and buying a box of tasty Cracker Jacks was only 10 cents. It took two decades for the Great Bambino’s salary to increase from a paltry $600 per year (1914) to a then-league record salary of $800,00 as reported in The Sporting News in 1932. In today’s dollars $800,000 would be about $218,000 — an infinitesimal fraction of the astronomical salaries earned by modern athletes — not even including their lucrative endorsement deals. In fact, many athletes earn more from endorsements than from their actual salaries or winnings. Below is the list of the highest paid athletes as reported by Forbes (total pay is calculated by adding salary/winning and endorsement deals; all numbers in millions).
1. Tiger Woods (golf): $78.1 Million ($13.1 + $65 Million)
2. Roger Federer (tennis) : $71.5 M ($6.5 + $65 M)
3. Kobe Bryant (basketball): $61.9 M ($27.9 + $34 M)
4. LeBron James (basketball): $59.8 M ($17.8 + $42 M)
5. Drew Brees (football): $51 M ($40 + $11 M)
6. Aaron Rodgers (football): $49 ($43 + $6 M)
7. Phil Mickelson (golf): $48.7 ($4.7 + $44 M)
8. David Beckham (soccer): $47.2 M ($5.2 + $42 M)
9. Cristiano Ronaldo (soccer): $44 M ($23 + $21 M)
10. Lionel Messi (soccer): $41.3 M ($20.3 + $21 M)
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http://www.forbes.com/athletes/list/
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/tsn/babe_ruth_salary.shtml
http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/sports/baseball/07depression.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
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