Tiger Woods
The Golfer Who Recovered From Scandals
The last few years have not been easy for American golf star Tiger Woods. As you may recall, in fact, between the end of 2009 and the beginning of 2010 the golfer was involved in a sex scandal, initially erupted by his wife’s jealousy scenes and then rekindled by the declarations of dozens of women to the tabloids, tabloids. who forced Woods to apologize several times publicly for his behavior and then retire from the scene for a few months, waiting for the waters to calm down; but in addition to the apologies and the family vicissitudes, which led him to divorce within a few months, it was also his sponsors who hit Woods, who to a large extent suspended his contracts immediately after the affair, causing him economic damage not indifferent.
Today, however, everything seems to have returned to normal: Tiger Woods returned to the golf courses as early as April 2010, at the beginning with the difficulties due to the loss of form, then, slowly, with more convincing results, regained last year also the top of the world ranking. Boy prodigy capable of winning the first Major at just 21 years old, in all he won 14, the last of which was the US Open in 2008, but he himself has repeatedly declared that he wants to try to beat the record of 18 of the legendary Jack Nicklaus.
According to Forbes, his takings this year amounted to more than 78 million dollars: 15 from sports awards and as many as 65 from sponsorships and related revenues; not surprisingly, in his career Woods boasts millionaire sponsorships with Nike, Gatorade, Gillette, American Express, General Motors and the EA Sports video game Tiger Woods PGA Tour, even named after him.
Roger Federer
The Great Reliability of the Swiss
His numerous fans may not have any, but even for Roger Federer the best period of his career seems perhaps to be behind him: after years of absolute domination on the world stage, he was first surpassed by Rafa Nadal – with whom he gave birth over the years to an of the most beautiful sporting rivalries in the world – and then by Novak Djokovic, both younger than him, who for some time have been competing for the top two positions in the ATP rankings; and, although the Swiss still occupies the fourth position and was able to win on the friendly field of Wimbledon just two years ago, it is clear that with almost 33 years on his shoulders he will probably no longer be able to continuously counter the Spanish and the Serbian.
Nonetheless, his numbers remain those of one of the greatest tennis players in history: 78 titles won including 17 Grand Slam tournaments, a silver medal in singles and a gold medal in doubles at the Olympics, 302 weeks at the top of the rankings. ATP, of which 286 consecutively between 2004 and 2008.
Also Read :FIVE OF THE BEST GOALS IN THE WORLD
From an economic point of view, Forbes places him in second place worldwide, with more than 71 million dollars in receipts, divided into only 6.5 million from sports prizes and even 65 million – the same figure as Tiger Woods – from sponsorships: among the companies that have wanted to tie themselves to his public image are the ubiquitous Nike, Gillette – who has a good relationship with sportsmen -, Mercedes-Benz and the Swiss Lindt, Credit Suisse, Rolex and Nationale Suisse, who evidently see in him the perfect testimonial of the proverbial Swiss reliability.
Kobe Bryant
The Legend of the Los Angeles Lakers
After two individual sports such as golf and tennis, let’s move on to team sports, in which personalities, despite what it would be logical to expect, also count a lot in economic terms; and, as mentioned, it is not so much football that reigns supreme in this sector, but rather American sports such as basketball, football and baseball, demonstrating once again how the US market is at a sporting level and not just the first of the world.
Moreover, if football and baseball are national sports but substantially little followed abroad, basketball is instead a global sport and the NBA, the North American professional league, is seen by millions and millions of viewers and fans around the world. In third and fourth place (but also in twelfth, seventeenth, twenty-third, twenty-fifth, and so on) there are two basketball players who have dominated the league in the last decade, Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers and LeBron James of the Miami Heat.
Let’s start with the first: born in Philadelphia but also raised in Italy – where his father played basketball for a few years – Kobe Bryant is one of the strongest basketball players of all time, as the statistics also explain, given that with more than 31,000 points he is the fourth most prolific scorer in history, as well as boasting five NBA titles, one MVP (best player of the year) title, two Finals MVPs, 16 All-Star Game calls and two medals Olympic gold medal.
His advertising contracts are many and varied: despite a sex scandal in 2003, which he soon returned, which made him lose some sponsorships (including Nutella), he is or was a testimonial for Nike, Turkish Airlines (with Leo Messi), of video games (even non-sports like Guitar Hero World Tour and Call of Duty: Black Ops), Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. In recent times, however, he has not lived a good period from a sporting point of view: injured in April 2013, he returned to the field in December, but, got injured shortly after; nonetheless, the Lakers have renewed his contract for another two years for more than 48 million dollars, making him the highest-paid player in the league (in all, between signings and sponsors, he is estimated to reach almost 62 million dollars. per year of income).
LeBron James
The Number One, Economically and Not Only, of the Nba
If Bryant, despite being absent from the fields for practically a year, continues to economically enjoy what he has done over the course of his long career, LeBron James is instead one of the rulers of the league, one who is getting down on the pitch even in these days, busy with his Miami Heat in the Conference final against the Indiana Pacers and, as things have turned out, probably also a future finalist of the championship for the fourth consecutive time.
Born in Ohio in 1984, James played for seven seasons as the home idol of the Cleveland Cavaliers, leading what is usually a mediocre team to achieve the best regular-season record two years in a row and have them play an NBA final in 2007.
But it was above all with the move to Miami, which took place in 2010 after a long and exhausting media negotiation, that James truly became a winning player: two consecutive titles in 2012 and 2013 (both with the MVP award of the finals), two other awards of Season MVP in addition to the two already taken in Cleveland, 10 consecutive calls to the All-Star Game and dozens of other awards.
For salaries and prizes, he takes almost 18 million dollars a year, but with the sponsors, his revenues rise to almost 60 million dollars a year: his image is in fact used to sponsor Nike, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Samsung, and many others. acronyms; among other things, its commercial rights are entrusted exclusively to Fenway Sports Group, a US investment company that also owns the Boston Red Sox in baseball and Liverpool in football: in exchange for these rights, as well as a large quantity James also received small stakes in the team he plays at Anfield.
Drew Brees
The Highest-paid Quarterback in the Nfl
The first four athletes of the ranking that we are presenting to you, for better or worse, you should know them all, at least by hearsay, even if you were not passionate about their sport; the fifth, Drew Brees, on the other hand, it is quite possible that you do not know who he is.
Texan, born in 1979, Brees is one of the most famous and gifted quarterbacks in the NFL, the professional league of American football. After a few years spent at the San Diego Chargers, a team that hardly made it to the playoffs, he moved in 2006 to the New Orleans Saints, a team that is also mediocre but has grown considerably under his guidance, coming to play an extraordinary season in 2009 that culminated with the conquest of the SuperBowl against the Indianapolis Colts and, personally for Brees, the title of MVP of the final.
The athlete, on the other hand, has been a regular presence at the Pro Bowl since 2006, holds the record with the highest number of consecutive games with a touchdown pass (54), and is the only player to have reached the finish line more than once. to make passes for more than 5000 yards in a single NFL season (the feat was also successful for the legendary Dan Marino, Tom Brady, Matthew Stafford, and Peyton Manning, but only once, while Brees did it in 2008, 2011, 2012, and 2013).
All these data allowed the Texan to renew his contract with the Saints in 2012 for $ 100 million over 5 years, of which 60 million was already guaranteed (the others will be awarded based on performance) and 40 paid immediately in the first year. a figure that obviously made Brees jump to the top of the Forbes rankings; the advertising contracts of the quarterback, on the other hand, are well below the average of this ranking: while the other athletes sail on figures ranging between 30 and 60 million dollars a year, Brees has brought home only 11, a trend that however it is also confirmed by other NFL athletes, generally much less paid than other colleagues. In any case, Brees’s sponsors include Nike, telecommunications operator Verizon, Pepsi, and Wrangler jeans.
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