It remains to be seen whether the information about the superstars' annual income is actually accurate to the cent. Finally, the salaries of the athletes in the US professional leagues are understandable, which must be made public due to the team limits in football, basketball and ice hockey (and not so strictly in baseball). And of course the prize money for individual athletes, for example in golf or tennis.

In addition, there is, of course, advertising revenue - however, the exact extent of which is very rare to get reliable figures.

Messi and Ronaldo are in front

Every year, Forbes Magazine makes fun of listing the world's highest-income athletes - and at least four ATP Tour professionals plus Serena Williams (the 63rd only woman in the top 100) made it onto the list. Led by Roger Federer in fifth place are Novak Djokovic, Kei Nishikori and Rafael Nadal.

At the forefront, however, are three soccer players who benefit from the global (also advertising) power of their discipline: According to Forbes, Lionel Messi is number one worldwide, followed by Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar. In any case, the bottom line: After entry into the "best" 100 was only possible with an income of $ 25 million, it can also be lived very well as number 642 or higher.

Here are the top earners in sports according to Forbes Magazine

rank	Surname	sport	Income (in US dollars)
1	Lionel Messi (Argentina)	Soccer	127 million
2nd	Cristiano Ronalso (Portugal)	Soccer	109 million
3rd	Neymar (Brazil)	Soccer	105 million
4th	Canelo Alvarez (Mexico)	Boxes	94 million
5	Roger Federer (Switzerland)	tennis	93.4 million
6	Russel Wilson (USA)	football	89.5 million
7	Aaron Rodgers (USA)	football	89.3 million
8th	LeBron James (USA)	basketball	89 million
9	Stephen Curry (USA)	basketball	79.8 million
10th	Kevin Durant (USA)	Baseball	65.4 million
17th	Novak Djokovic (Serbia)	tennis	50.6 million
35	Kei Nishikori (Japan)	tennis	37.3 million
37	Rafael Nadal (Spain)	tennis	35 million
63	Serena Williams (USA)	tennis	29.2 million