The 35-year-old striker is only the third athlete to hit the mark
while still playing, following Tiger Woods, who did it in 2009 on the
back of his long-term endorsement deal with Nike and Floyd Mayweather,
who did it in 2017 and has made most of his income from a cut of
pay-per-view sales for his boxing matches.
Ronaldo, the first to reach the earnings milestone in a team sport,
has made $650 million on the pitch during his 17 years as a pro and is
expected to reach $765 million in career salary with his current
contract, which ends in June 2022. Messi, who began playing at the
senior level three years after Ronaldo, has earned a total of $605
million in salary since 2005.
The only team athlete to even come within striking distance of those
figures was former New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez, who retired
in 2016 after 22 years in Major League Baseball having earned $450
million in salary. Not even soccer legend David Beckham came close,
ending his career with total earnings of $500 million, half of which
came from off-the-pitch endorsements.
“Cristiano Ronaldo
is one of the greatest players of all time, in the world’s most popular
sport, in an era when football has never been so rich,” said Sporting
Intelligence’s Nick Harris, whose Global Sports Salaries Survey ranks
teams worldwide based on total salary expense. “He’s box office.”
Ronaldo and Messi’s head-to-heads heated up in 2009 in Spain’s La
Liga, where Ronaldo played for Real Madrid and Messi for Barcelona.
Their faceoffs on the pitch ignited a nine-year battle for bragging
rights as the best—and top-paid—in the sport, a highly personal
tit-for-tat that had them re-negotiating contracts in lockstep and
monopolizing the game’s highlight reel.
The rivalry was as entertaining as it was profitable, coming just as
clubs around the world were seeing soaring attendance and an influx of
television money. The two were perfectly matched for battle, on and off
the pitch: Ronaldo perfected a shirtless, stylized showmanship while
Messi played the quiet game, always a tad unkempt and as prolific a
scorer as he was a wingman. Ronaldo strutted after every goal. Messi was
a master at thanking his teammates.
Both backed it up. Barcelona won La Liga’s title six times and two
Champions Leagues trophies with Messi on the squad. Real Madrid won the
Spanish title twice and the Champions League four times with Ronaldo.
During their years in the league, each player nabbed the Ballon d’Or
(soccer’s MVP award) four times, and El Clásico, the nickname for their
clubs’ fierce clashes, was a record-setting television event worldwide.
But when it comes to leveraging celebrity, it has been no contest.
Guided by Jorge Mendes of Gestifute, one of the world’s most powerful
agents, Ronaldo has amassed an ever-growing following of fans and
consumers drawn to his poster-boy good looks, his trend-setting hair
styles, his impeccable fashion sense and, lately, his softer side as a
family man whose toddlers pop up on his social media posts.
In January, he became the first person with 200 million followers on
Instagram, part of a social media army of 427 million across Facebook,
Instagram and Twitter that makes him the most popular athlete on the
planet.
Nike pays him upwards of $20 million annually and signed him to a
lifetime deal in 2016, making him just the third athlete, after Michael
Jordan and LeBron James, hitched to the Swoosh for eternity.
In May, the footwear maker announced the release of a
ten-year-anniversary edition of his first signature Mercurial Superfly
and a child’s version to celebrate his son’s 10th birthday, complete
with his famous celebration stance, signature and logo.
Pitches for Clear shampoo, Herbalife and pharmaceutical maker Abbott help raise his endorsement tally to $45 million.
