it is a great thing in 16 years for them. well done team USA.
I kinda like the dynamics of current team USA, no big egos and great team work.
Showing posts with label Basketball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Basketball. Show all posts
Monday, September 13, 2010
Friday, November 28, 2008
NBA Class of 2003
| 1. L. James CLE | 27.9 |
| 2. C. Bosh TOR | 27.6 |
| 3. D. Wade MIA | 27.4 |
This is awesome because do you see the common similarities between these 3 top scorers? They are from rookie class of 2003 and they are all Recently Crown Team USA.
It is almost totally not arguable that 2003 rookie class is probably the best in past 15 years and also will be next 10 years to come. what do you think?
Saturday, September 20, 2008
NBA fines Heat’s Beasley $50,000
Miami Heat rookie Michael Beasley was fined $50,000 by the NBA on Thursday after acknowledging that he was involved in an incident involving teammate Mario Chalmers and Memphis’ Darrell Arthur at the Rookie Transition Program this month.
The NBA said Beasley, the No. 2 overall pick, originally failed to cooperate with the league investigation of the matter. The Heat said Beasley eventually chose to reveal that he was part of the incident.
Chalmers and Arthur, former Kansas teammates, were fined $20,000 apiece last week after being banished from the rookie symposium. They were found in a room at the resort where the event was taking place with two women—which violated NBA policy for the event. Security at the resort said the scent of marijuana was detected, but no drugs or drug paraphernalia were found, and Chalmers and Arthur both insisted they were not using any illegal substances.
Beasley’s involvement in the incident is not clear. He filed papers to dissolve the relationship with his agent, Joel Bell, last week, and was not available for comment Thursday.
“While we are disappointed with Michael’s involvement, we are pleased that he chose to come forward and stand with his teammate and accept the consequences of his actions,” Heat president Pat Riley said in a statement. “We are hopeful that both Michael and Mario have learned from this experience and we will have no further comment on the subject.”
None of the three players will be suspended by the league. Chalmers and Arthur will have to repeat the symposium, which teaches incoming NBA players how to handle the on- and off-court rigors of life in the league, next summer.
source: yahoo sports
The NBA said Beasley, the No. 2 overall pick, originally failed to cooperate with the league investigation of the matter. The Heat said Beasley eventually chose to reveal that he was part of the incident.
Chalmers and Arthur, former Kansas teammates, were fined $20,000 apiece last week after being banished from the rookie symposium. They were found in a room at the resort where the event was taking place with two women—which violated NBA policy for the event. Security at the resort said the scent of marijuana was detected, but no drugs or drug paraphernalia were found, and Chalmers and Arthur both insisted they were not using any illegal substances.
Beasley’s involvement in the incident is not clear. He filed papers to dissolve the relationship with his agent, Joel Bell, last week, and was not available for comment Thursday.
“While we are disappointed with Michael’s involvement, we are pleased that he chose to come forward and stand with his teammate and accept the consequences of his actions,” Heat president Pat Riley said in a statement. “We are hopeful that both Michael and Mario have learned from this experience and we will have no further comment on the subject.”
None of the three players will be suspended by the league. Chalmers and Arthur will have to repeat the symposium, which teaches incoming NBA players how to handle the on- and off-court rigors of life in the league, next summer.
source: yahoo sports
Friday, September 19, 2008
Rockets buy loads of supplies for Ike victims
The Houston Rockets purchased four tractor-trailers full of food, water and toiletries for victims of Hurricane Ike and players unloaded them at a distribution center Thursday.
The four trucks carried 80,000 pounds of supplies, said team spokeswoman Tracey Hughes.
Forwards Mike Harris and Chuck Hayes and guards Rafer Alston, Aaron Brooks and Luther Head carried boxes of food and orange juice. They greeted motorists who waited in long lines to get supplies in the parking lot next to the University of Houston’s football stadium.
Rockets chief executive officer Tad Brown said the team tapped its relationship with Feed the Children, an international charity, to bring the trucks to Houston from Oklahoma City.
The Rockets and Feed the Children worked together three years ago during hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The charity also helped Rockets center Dikembe Mutombo with his foundation that supports efforts to improve education and quality of life for people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Rockets owner Leslie Alexander started organizing the shipments on Monday night and the trucks were on the road by Wednesday afternoon, Brown said.
“It was an easy decision to do something very quickly,” Brown said. “We had the infrastructure in place to do it.”
Brown said the Toyota Center, built to withstand a direct hit from a Category 5 hurricane, sustained no damage from Ike. Brooks gathered seven family members, left his house and spent the night of the storm in a luxury suite.
“It seemed like the safest place to be,” Brooks said.
Head, a Chicago native, flew home Sept. 11, two days before the storm hit, and returned to Houston on Monday. He saw the storm damage on his drive back from the airport.
“Trees in highways, houses with windows busted out, rooftops gone,” Head said. “I was just hoping my house wasn’t as bad as the things I was seeing. When I got there, I saw that I didn’t have much damage, just my electricity was off. I felt fortunate, but I also felt bad for the people who lost more.”
Brown said none of the Rockets were permanently displaced, but more than half of the team’s staff still had no power at their homes Thursday. Power was restored at Head’s house Wednesday night.
“The one thing about a hurricane or a disaster like this, it doesn’t matter how much you make, it doesn’t matter what profession you have, it doesn’t matter if you’re a pro athlete or an account executive, we’re all going through the same things,” Brown said.
source: chris duncan
The four trucks carried 80,000 pounds of supplies, said team spokeswoman Tracey Hughes.
Forwards Mike Harris and Chuck Hayes and guards Rafer Alston, Aaron Brooks and Luther Head carried boxes of food and orange juice. They greeted motorists who waited in long lines to get supplies in the parking lot next to the University of Houston’s football stadium.
Rockets chief executive officer Tad Brown said the team tapped its relationship with Feed the Children, an international charity, to bring the trucks to Houston from Oklahoma City.
The Rockets and Feed the Children worked together three years ago during hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The charity also helped Rockets center Dikembe Mutombo with his foundation that supports efforts to improve education and quality of life for people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Rockets owner Leslie Alexander started organizing the shipments on Monday night and the trucks were on the road by Wednesday afternoon, Brown said.
“It was an easy decision to do something very quickly,” Brown said. “We had the infrastructure in place to do it.”
Brown said the Toyota Center, built to withstand a direct hit from a Category 5 hurricane, sustained no damage from Ike. Brooks gathered seven family members, left his house and spent the night of the storm in a luxury suite.
“It seemed like the safest place to be,” Brooks said.
Head, a Chicago native, flew home Sept. 11, two days before the storm hit, and returned to Houston on Monday. He saw the storm damage on his drive back from the airport.
“Trees in highways, houses with windows busted out, rooftops gone,” Head said. “I was just hoping my house wasn’t as bad as the things I was seeing. When I got there, I saw that I didn’t have much damage, just my electricity was off. I felt fortunate, but I also felt bad for the people who lost more.”
Brown said none of the Rockets were permanently displaced, but more than half of the team’s staff still had no power at their homes Thursday. Power was restored at Head’s house Wednesday night.
“The one thing about a hurricane or a disaster like this, it doesn’t matter how much you make, it doesn’t matter what profession you have, it doesn’t matter if you’re a pro athlete or an account executive, we’re all going through the same things,” Brown said.
source: chris duncan
Cuban posts, removes e-mails on Josh Howard
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban says forward Josh Howard realizes his comments about the national anthem were wrong and the player has apologized.
In his online blog, Cuban also responded to e-mails he has received commenting on the player’s remarks by saying Howard “will work with us” and “beyond that, it’s a private issue.”
Cuban posted a number of the inflammatory replies on his blog Thursday night, with the apparent e-mail addresses of the senders.
But by Friday night, Cuban’s remarks slugged “Thanks for the advice on Josh” had been removed from the blog and replaced with a posting saying “I made my point.”
Howard’s comments, in a video posted on the Web site YouTube, show him on a football field at a charity flag football game. As the national anthem plays in the background, Howard approaches a camera and says: “‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is going on right now. I don’t even celebrate that (expletive). I’m black.”
Some e-mails that Cuban posted made blatant racist remarks about Howard. Others suggested Howard should move to another country, be fined or fired.
Cuban’s updated response said his original posting was “the right thing to do,” but he says it left him with an upset stomach all day Friday.
“I thought it was important to point out the hatred and ignorance of so many who quickly judge people they have never met, based purely on soundbites and headlines,” Cuban wrote late Friday. “I wanted to point out the irony of them experiencing the onslaught of attention from suddenly and unexpectedly being placed in the media spotlight from a throwaway comment.”
Cuban said he knew those e-mailers would be receiving “the same level of hate, ignorance and judgment as Josh had and that’s what bothered me all day.”
Cuban ended by saying: “Hopefully something good came from it being posted.”
Cuban did not immediately respond Friday night to an e-mail from The Associated Press.
source: DIANA HEIDGERD, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Why Cristiano Ronaldo Really Is A Slave
The sporting rich list makes for curious reading. With all due respect, a vast majority of people worldwide reading the name Phil Mickelson would think it's a typo. But no, Mickelson - not Nickelson, or Nicholson, for that matter - is a 38-year-old American golfer, and renowned as the second best in the world. Avram Grant finished second in the Champions League, Premier League and Carling Cup in charge of Chelsea last season and got fired, Mickelson is second in the world and earned a staggering $62.3 million between June 2007 and 2008. Fair? Clearly, there's no such thing as a fair way on the fairway in the fast life of a golfer.
Lefty's hefty salary puts him at number two on the rich list of the sporting world and, if the second best golfer is the second highest earner, there are no prizes for guessing who holds the top spot. Arguably the greatest golfer of all time - and he certainly will be by the time he retires - Tiger Woods has for successive years been named the highest earning athlete in the world. The 32-year-old is making over twice as much as Mickelson - $127.9m - and looks set to become the first ever athlete to make over a billion dollars in earnings by 2010.
Role Of The Sponsors
Golf's monopoly on the top spots ends at second, as the 'global game' squeezes its way into the top three - and who other than David Beckham could come to soccer's rescue? Beckham cashed in $48.2m last year - far and away more than any other player - but contrary to popular belief, very little of that money is part of his basic contract. Noticeably past his prime as a player, the former Manchester United and Real Madrid star earns approximately $5.3m-a-year from his contract with Los Angeles Galaxy. That may make him the highest earner in Major League Soccer, but there are many in Europe earning double that with their clubs.
Becks gets the majority of his money from Pepsi, Adidas, Police sunglasses, Sharpie permanent markers and whatever else he can get his hands on - and why not? He has even been able to ditch a big-money deal with Gillette and afford the luxury of some designer stubble and tell Brylcreem where to go when he shaved his head way back when.
Speaking of sponsors, there is no shortage of money in Formula One racing, no doubt due to the logos plastered all over each car like a collage gone horribly wrong. Lewis Hamilton's rise to stardom over the past 18 months has seen the money roll in at $27.6m per year, yet he's not quite in the same league as Kimi Räikkönen, with the emerging Finn hot on Beckham's trail with his cool return of $46m, though it could rise as high as $51m depending on his success rate. Fernando Alonso had been earning even more, but abandoned a lucrative contract with McLaren, switching back to Renault and having to settle for $35m, though that figure could rise back up to around $45m. To put matters in perspective, the invincible Michael Schumacher earned as much as both Alonso and Räikkönen put together when in his prime and the sporting world's highest earner, having since retired in 2006.
Thus when we turn our attention back to the golf course we see where the money really comes from. It is estimated that approximately $105m of Tiger Woods' overall earnings came from sponsorship deals. Mickelson, too, earns five times as much from his sponsors than he does on the golf course, by virtue of his every item of clothing being branded by the likes of accounting firm KPMG, Barclays bank and Rolex. We can say he chose his sponsors wisely - but who knew golfers were so marketable? After all, how many people are really watching when compared with other major sports? More than we thought, it seems - or maybe it's that golf viewers remain of the upper class and are in such a high financial bracket that advertisers go the extra monetary mile to attract their attention.
Contracts
But what about contracts? Surely they're the real measure of the athlete? To that end, great interest surrounds who has the biggest contract, or in other words, whose talent is worth the most money. The results are surprising: Beckham and Mickelson are among the lowest earners in the entire 'rich list' of top athletes, yet sponsors shoot them all the way up to third and second respectively. Baseball star Alex Rodriguez has far and away the largest contract in professional sport, earning an unbelievable $29m per year from the New York Yankees.
Behind him is Woods, followed by other top stars in individual sports. Take boxing: 'Pretty Boy' Floyd Mayweather gave Ricky Hatton the runaround on his way to earning $20m in December, remaining unbeaten and picking up another $20.25m in sponsors. Publicity stunts such as his infamous parading around in a Manchester United shirt to anger Manchester City fan Hatton have done wonders for the undefeated phenom's image worldwide, though his earnings may well have now peaked, as he officially announced his retirement in June this year.
Then there is Roger Federer - very much the Tiger Woods of tennis - who isn't far off the pace either. Total earnings of $35m make the Swiss machine far and away the highest earner on the court, despite his drop in earnings due to losing top spot in the world rankings to Rafael Nadal this year. Maria Sharapova, with $21.75m, is the only woman to make the list, though young golfer Michelle Wie may soon have something to say about that. Sharapova's winnings are the lowest on the entire list, but she earns almost 20 times as much through sponsors, showing the potential marketability of women in the sporting world.
The Rich List
Not all top earners are included; many athletes - mostly basketballers - earning between $20-30m have been omitted so that the list did not get too long. Also note that no salaries or winnings figures are 100% accurate as they ultimately remain confidential.
Land Of The Free (And Rich)
The $30 million and above club is dominated almost entirely by American sports - basketball by far the richest, then baseball and to a lesser extent, football - it's only from then on that soccer's familiar faces enter the fray. Beckham aside, Ronaldinho also cracks Team America's stranglehold on the financial world of sport. Despite taking a pay cut to join Milan, the Gaucho is still thought to earn almost $35m annually, of which at least $27.5m comes through sponsors. The bucktoothed wonder may have temporarily lost his smile, form and fitness, but the money keeps rolling on in regardless by virtue of those years that he was quite simply playing like one of the greatest of all time.
His former Barcelona team-mate, Lionel Messi, is another who has hit the big time. Very much Ronaldinho's successor for the Blaugrana, the unstoppable Argentine's humble nature, garden gnome facial expression and two-dollar haircut might fool you into believing he didn't smash his way past $30m last year, but apparently, he did.
Naturally, we could only go so far without mentioning the undisputed centre of attention in the beautiful game, the most maligned of the moment, in Cristiano Ronaldo. C-Ron earned just over $30m last year, and Uncle Alex will no doubt be lining some Portuguese pockets with a little extra after the 23-year-old chose to stay at Old Trafford this summer, turning down his dream move to Real Madrid following a confidential heart-to-heart with the wily old Scot in July. In due time he is sure to soar all the way up this list, but for now, he surprisingly finds himself in a comparitively modest position on the rich list. Maybe Sepp Blatter was right all along, the multi-millionaire must really be a slave after all.
But let's forget the Messi and Ronaldo hype for a minute: what about the man who was voted as and officially remains World and European Player of the Year? Never fear, Milanello, as Kaka is in fact in possession of the most lucrative contract, worth almost $13.5m per year.
Ignoring the fact that A-Rod earns over twice as much in basic wage alone, let's remain focused on the positives: Kaka edges Lionel Messi in the contract stakes, despite his club being notoriously short of cash at the minute - so much so that they're still trying to convince themselves that Philippe Senderos isn't Arsenal's worst defender, Andriy Shevchenko isn't past it and Giuseppe Favalli didn't lose whatever little talent he had 750 years ago. Surprisingly, Kaka only picks up about $6.7m in sponsorship deals. The picture of professionalism, the Brazilian wouldn't look out of place on a golf course himself - it's a miracle he's not making more. Behind Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo is the next most marketable footballer - last year netting $18.9m in addition to the $11.4m from his contract - and his stock is bound to continue rising.
Another Barça player - the third of the erstwhile Fantastic Four - is the next highest earner in the game. Thierry Henry, who established himself as one of the best players in the world during his days with Arsenal, has contractual parity with Cristiano Ronaldo since signing for Barcelona. However, despite a lucrative deal he, Federer and Woods have with Gillette as well as his va-va-voom franchise with Renault, France's all-time leading scorer's sponsorship earnings aren't in the same league as either of them, at 'just' $14.7m. Poor Samuel Eto'o: no wonder he was so full of outrageous wage demands this summer - he was just trying to break even with his buddies.
The last of the money men are what can only be described as Roman Abramovich's boys - the Chelsea lot. John Terry and Michael Ballack earn $21.6m and $21.5m respectively, Frank Lampard is on the same $12.1m wage as Terry - a fraction more than Ballack for ego's sake and little more - while Didier Drogba is making $10.5m as well. We can't forget Andriy Shevchenko, who cost the Blues $60m and is still earning $11.1m a year, though on loan at Milan and no doubt in line for one hell of a pay cut if the move is made permanent as expected. What he and others such as Ronaldinho and Henry demonstrate is that often the most money will fall at the feet of athletes once they have already peaked - it's all downhill from there - yet they continue to make the most money off the back of former glories while the new school are making history in the now. Who might we see on this list in two or three years' time?
If Emmanuel Adebayor had his way, he'd probably be top of the pile now and forever, because he's just that damn good. However, as it stands, it is of little surprise that none of the Wenger boys made the cut, while Liverpool's Steven Gerrard is close but doesn't quite break $20m a year. Manchester United's top earner is thought to be Wayne Rooney, while Real Madrid super-stopper Iker Casillas, Zlatan Ibrahimovic of Internazionale and Juventus legend Alessandro Del Piero are all close by as well.
At the end of the day, all of our leading stars in the world's most popular sport must resign themselves to the fact that basketball is twice as lucrative though half as popular, the fattest contract goes to a man who plays a sport which even a large percentage of Americans admit is boring, and the biggest sponsorship deals and overall earnings to two guys who star in a sport that athletes, doctors and your father tend to play during their time off. We could all be rich...
source: Sulmaan Ahmad
Lefty's hefty salary puts him at number two on the rich list of the sporting world and, if the second best golfer is the second highest earner, there are no prizes for guessing who holds the top spot. Arguably the greatest golfer of all time - and he certainly will be by the time he retires - Tiger Woods has for successive years been named the highest earning athlete in the world. The 32-year-old is making over twice as much as Mickelson - $127.9m - and looks set to become the first ever athlete to make over a billion dollars in earnings by 2010.
Role Of The Sponsors
Golf's monopoly on the top spots ends at second, as the 'global game' squeezes its way into the top three - and who other than David Beckham could come to soccer's rescue? Beckham cashed in $48.2m last year - far and away more than any other player - but contrary to popular belief, very little of that money is part of his basic contract. Noticeably past his prime as a player, the former Manchester United and Real Madrid star earns approximately $5.3m-a-year from his contract with Los Angeles Galaxy. That may make him the highest earner in Major League Soccer, but there are many in Europe earning double that with their clubs.
Becks gets the majority of his money from Pepsi, Adidas, Police sunglasses, Sharpie permanent markers and whatever else he can get his hands on - and why not? He has even been able to ditch a big-money deal with Gillette and afford the luxury of some designer stubble and tell Brylcreem where to go when he shaved his head way back when.
Speaking of sponsors, there is no shortage of money in Formula One racing, no doubt due to the logos plastered all over each car like a collage gone horribly wrong. Lewis Hamilton's rise to stardom over the past 18 months has seen the money roll in at $27.6m per year, yet he's not quite in the same league as Kimi Räikkönen, with the emerging Finn hot on Beckham's trail with his cool return of $46m, though it could rise as high as $51m depending on his success rate. Fernando Alonso had been earning even more, but abandoned a lucrative contract with McLaren, switching back to Renault and having to settle for $35m, though that figure could rise back up to around $45m. To put matters in perspective, the invincible Michael Schumacher earned as much as both Alonso and Räikkönen put together when in his prime and the sporting world's highest earner, having since retired in 2006.
Thus when we turn our attention back to the golf course we see where the money really comes from. It is estimated that approximately $105m of Tiger Woods' overall earnings came from sponsorship deals. Mickelson, too, earns five times as much from his sponsors than he does on the golf course, by virtue of his every item of clothing being branded by the likes of accounting firm KPMG, Barclays bank and Rolex. We can say he chose his sponsors wisely - but who knew golfers were so marketable? After all, how many people are really watching when compared with other major sports? More than we thought, it seems - or maybe it's that golf viewers remain of the upper class and are in such a high financial bracket that advertisers go the extra monetary mile to attract their attention.
Contracts
But what about contracts? Surely they're the real measure of the athlete? To that end, great interest surrounds who has the biggest contract, or in other words, whose talent is worth the most money. The results are surprising: Beckham and Mickelson are among the lowest earners in the entire 'rich list' of top athletes, yet sponsors shoot them all the way up to third and second respectively. Baseball star Alex Rodriguez has far and away the largest contract in professional sport, earning an unbelievable $29m per year from the New York Yankees.
Behind him is Woods, followed by other top stars in individual sports. Take boxing: 'Pretty Boy' Floyd Mayweather gave Ricky Hatton the runaround on his way to earning $20m in December, remaining unbeaten and picking up another $20.25m in sponsors. Publicity stunts such as his infamous parading around in a Manchester United shirt to anger Manchester City fan Hatton have done wonders for the undefeated phenom's image worldwide, though his earnings may well have now peaked, as he officially announced his retirement in June this year.
Then there is Roger Federer - very much the Tiger Woods of tennis - who isn't far off the pace either. Total earnings of $35m make the Swiss machine far and away the highest earner on the court, despite his drop in earnings due to losing top spot in the world rankings to Rafael Nadal this year. Maria Sharapova, with $21.75m, is the only woman to make the list, though young golfer Michelle Wie may soon have something to say about that. Sharapova's winnings are the lowest on the entire list, but she earns almost 20 times as much through sponsors, showing the potential marketability of women in the sporting world.
The Rich List
| Rank | Athlete (Sport) | Salary | Sponsors | Total |
| 01 | Tiger Woods (Golf) | $22.9m | $105m | $127.9m |
| 02 | Phil Mickelson (Golf) | $9.3m | $53m | $62.3m |
| 03 | David Beckham (Soccer) | $5.3m | $42.9 | $48.2m |
| 04 | Kimi Räikkönen (Formula One) | n/a | n/a | $46m |
| 05 | LeBron James (Basketball) | $12.5m | $28m | $40.5m |
| 06 | Floyd Mayweather (Boxing) | $20m | $20.25m | $40.25m |
| 07 | Lionel Messi (Soccer) | $12.5m | $23.3m | $35.8m |
| 08 | Kobe Bryant (Basketball) | $19.5m | $16m | $35.5m |
| 09 | Roger Federer (Tennis) | $10.1m | $25m | $35.1m |
| 10 | Fernando Alonso (Formula One) | n/a | n/a | $35m |
| 11 | Alex Rodriguez (Baseball) | $29m | $6m | $35m |
| 12 | Shaquille O'Neal (Basketball) | $20m | $15m | $35m |
| 13 | Ronaldinho (Soccer) | $7.5m | $27.5m | $35m |
| 14 | Valentino Rossi (Moto GP) | $6m | $28m | $34m |
| 15 | Kevin Garnett (Basketball) | $22m | $9m | $31m |
| 16 | Peyton Manning (Football) | $17.5m | $13m | $30.5m |
| 17 | Cristiano Ronaldo (Soccer) | $11.4m | $18.9m | $30.3m |
| 18 | Derek Jeter (Baseball) | $22m | $8m | $30m |
| 19 | Ichiro Suzuki (Baseball) | $17m | $10.6m | $27.6m |
| 20 | Lewis Hamilton (Formula One) | n/a | n/a | $27.6m |
| 21 | Thierry Henry (Soccer) | $11.4m | $14.7m | $26.1m |
| 22 | Maria Sharapova (Tennis) | $1.9m | $18.85m | $21.75m |
| 23 | John Terry (Soccer) | $12.1m | $9.5m | $21.6m |
| 24 | Michael Ballack (Soccer) | $11.6m | $9.9m | $21.5m |
| 25 | Kaka (Soccer) | $13.4m | $6.7m | $20.1m |
Not all top earners are included; many athletes - mostly basketballers - earning between $20-30m have been omitted so that the list did not get too long. Also note that no salaries or winnings figures are 100% accurate as they ultimately remain confidential.
Land Of The Free (And Rich)
The $30 million and above club is dominated almost entirely by American sports - basketball by far the richest, then baseball and to a lesser extent, football - it's only from then on that soccer's familiar faces enter the fray. Beckham aside, Ronaldinho also cracks Team America's stranglehold on the financial world of sport. Despite taking a pay cut to join Milan, the Gaucho is still thought to earn almost $35m annually, of which at least $27.5m comes through sponsors. The bucktoothed wonder may have temporarily lost his smile, form and fitness, but the money keeps rolling on in regardless by virtue of those years that he was quite simply playing like one of the greatest of all time.
His former Barcelona team-mate, Lionel Messi, is another who has hit the big time. Very much Ronaldinho's successor for the Blaugrana, the unstoppable Argentine's humble nature, garden gnome facial expression and two-dollar haircut might fool you into believing he didn't smash his way past $30m last year, but apparently, he did.
Naturally, we could only go so far without mentioning the undisputed centre of attention in the beautiful game, the most maligned of the moment, in Cristiano Ronaldo. C-Ron earned just over $30m last year, and Uncle Alex will no doubt be lining some Portuguese pockets with a little extra after the 23-year-old chose to stay at Old Trafford this summer, turning down his dream move to Real Madrid following a confidential heart-to-heart with the wily old Scot in July. In due time he is sure to soar all the way up this list, but for now, he surprisingly finds himself in a comparitively modest position on the rich list. Maybe Sepp Blatter was right all along, the multi-millionaire must really be a slave after all.
But let's forget the Messi and Ronaldo hype for a minute: what about the man who was voted as and officially remains World and European Player of the Year? Never fear, Milanello, as Kaka is in fact in possession of the most lucrative contract, worth almost $13.5m per year.
Ignoring the fact that A-Rod earns over twice as much in basic wage alone, let's remain focused on the positives: Kaka edges Lionel Messi in the contract stakes, despite his club being notoriously short of cash at the minute - so much so that they're still trying to convince themselves that Philippe Senderos isn't Arsenal's worst defender, Andriy Shevchenko isn't past it and Giuseppe Favalli didn't lose whatever little talent he had 750 years ago. Surprisingly, Kaka only picks up about $6.7m in sponsorship deals. The picture of professionalism, the Brazilian wouldn't look out of place on a golf course himself - it's a miracle he's not making more. Behind Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo is the next most marketable footballer - last year netting $18.9m in addition to the $11.4m from his contract - and his stock is bound to continue rising.
Another Barça player - the third of the erstwhile Fantastic Four - is the next highest earner in the game. Thierry Henry, who established himself as one of the best players in the world during his days with Arsenal, has contractual parity with Cristiano Ronaldo since signing for Barcelona. However, despite a lucrative deal he, Federer and Woods have with Gillette as well as his va-va-voom franchise with Renault, France's all-time leading scorer's sponsorship earnings aren't in the same league as either of them, at 'just' $14.7m. Poor Samuel Eto'o: no wonder he was so full of outrageous wage demands this summer - he was just trying to break even with his buddies.
The last of the money men are what can only be described as Roman Abramovich's boys - the Chelsea lot. John Terry and Michael Ballack earn $21.6m and $21.5m respectively, Frank Lampard is on the same $12.1m wage as Terry - a fraction more than Ballack for ego's sake and little more - while Didier Drogba is making $10.5m as well. We can't forget Andriy Shevchenko, who cost the Blues $60m and is still earning $11.1m a year, though on loan at Milan and no doubt in line for one hell of a pay cut if the move is made permanent as expected. What he and others such as Ronaldinho and Henry demonstrate is that often the most money will fall at the feet of athletes once they have already peaked - it's all downhill from there - yet they continue to make the most money off the back of former glories while the new school are making history in the now. Who might we see on this list in two or three years' time?
If Emmanuel Adebayor had his way, he'd probably be top of the pile now and forever, because he's just that damn good. However, as it stands, it is of little surprise that none of the Wenger boys made the cut, while Liverpool's Steven Gerrard is close but doesn't quite break $20m a year. Manchester United's top earner is thought to be Wayne Rooney, while Real Madrid super-stopper Iker Casillas, Zlatan Ibrahimovic of Internazionale and Juventus legend Alessandro Del Piero are all close by as well.
At the end of the day, all of our leading stars in the world's most popular sport must resign themselves to the fact that basketball is twice as lucrative though half as popular, the fattest contract goes to a man who plays a sport which even a large percentage of Americans admit is boring, and the biggest sponsorship deals and overall earnings to two guys who star in a sport that athletes, doctors and your father tend to play during their time off. We could all be rich...
source: Sulmaan Ahmad
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