Money rules our world and we can’t deny it. Have you ever thought about playing online poker or betting on sports games wishing for luck and a huge win? Even if you indeed win, you will have a small part of the wealth of the richest athletes on our planet. Who are they? What do they do? Why do they earn so much?

Show business or recognition for talent?

There are athletes who are extremely talented, but their sport isn’t popular. There can be various reasons why it is like that. Nowadays, sports need to be vivid and full of action. When it is long and too complicated, people will not watch it so eagerly and it won’t bring lucrative income. As long as sport is interesting for spectators, athletes in this discipline will earn a lot.  

That is why the wealthiest people are generally footballers, basketball players, baseball or tennis players since these are the most popular sports in the world. We can’t deny them recognition, but there are so many more talented people in disciplines that are underpaid, and can’t dream of a fortune similar to their colleagues from famous sports. Let us see the amounts of money that athletes earn which makes them one of the richest men on the planet.

Roger Federer, $106.3 million

According to the Forbes list from 2020, the richest athlete worldwide is Swiss tennis player, Roger Federer. 39-years old Federer earns $6.3 million from his salary and the rest from endorsements. He starts his career at 17 and his prize money is over $100 million.

Cristiano Ronaldo, $105 million

Famous Portugese football player, Cristiano Ronaldo was playing for many years for Spanish football club Real Madrid. In 2018, a talented player was transferred to Juventus Turin for some astonishing amount of money. Juventus paid 112 million euros for Ronaldo. His salary is $60 million and the rest from endorsements. 

Lionel Messi, $104 million

Argentinian footballer can be seen in the colours of FC Barcelona for almost his whole career. He earns $72 million in salaries and another $32 million in endorsements. His matches with Ronaldo were always legendary, and they were always compared to each other since both played in Spanish League. It ended in 2018, because Ronaldo’s club is Italian.

Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior known as Neymar, $95.5 million

29 years old Neymar is known for his career in Brazilian National Team and French league club Paris Saint-Germain. He debuted at the age of 17 in Santos. He earns $70.5 million as his salary and $25 million more in endorsements. His career has been thriving quickly for the last decade, and he is one of the most known athletes around the world.

All the time list

Four gentlemen above are the richest considering their earnings in 2020. In 2017 Forbes updated the list of All the Time wealthiest athletes and here the situation is different

The first is Micheal Jordan, a famous American basketball player known for his career in Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). His whole wealth is summed up to be $1,850 millions of dollars. This is a breathtaking amount of money.

The second wealthiest athlete is golfer, Tiger Woods. His income through the whole career is $1,700 million dollars.

Jack Nicklaus, considered to be the best golfers of all time, is the next with his $1,200 million. Then, Michael Schumacher, the Formula1 driver with $1,000 million dollars of income. 

The list of 10 wealthiest athletes is closing with Phil Mickelson, a golfer with $815 million wealth, Kobe Bryant, basketball player, who earned $800 million through his great career, 

David Beckham, footballer from the United Kingdom with $800 million as well, Floyd Mayweather Jr. with $785 million, and Shaquille O'Neal, basketball player and his $735 million dollar wealth. 

Conclusion

Athletes are the ones of the wealthiest people on the planet. Even if they would lose a half or three quarters of their money, they would still be called millionaires. People with such amounts of money can do almost whatever they want. They can be high rollers in the casino/kaszinó even without gambling experience and it is a common situation. 

Sadly, as we can see, there is no single woman in this top 10 of the wealthiest athletes since the Men's league and championship are always more popular in show business than female’s one. We can have hope that it will change, and we need to support talented young girls in following their dreams, and ensure them that they can be great athletes. We should encourage streaming and broadcasting matches and games involving women, and maybe in a few years we will see a woman on this list.

This was sudden.

LaMarcus Aldridge, who recently signed with the Brooklyn Nets abruptly retired due to issues with his heart.  In his last game, Aldridge experienced an irregular heartbeat, and after consulting with doctors, the former Trail Blazer elected to call it a career.

Aldridge was the second overall pick in the 2006 NBA Draft from Texas, where he was the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year.  Taken by Portland, Aldridge showed gradual improvement, going to his first All-Star Game in 2012, and would appear in six more.  A one-time Second Team All-Star, Aldridge averaged over 20 Points per Game seven times, and twice cracked the double-digit mark in Rebounds per Game.

He was traded to the San Antonio Spurs in 2016, where he played the remainder of his career, save for the five Games with Brooklyn this year.  Aldridge leaves the game with career averages of 19.4 Points and 8.2 Rebounds over 1,029 Games.  He was 49 Points shy of 20,000.

Aldridge will be eligible for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2025.  He will be a bubble candidate, and will be ranked by us.  In our 2020/21 pre-season rank of those to consider for the Hall, Aldridge was #18.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to wish LaMarcus Aldridge the best in his post-playing career.

Recently we wrote about the retirement of Julian Edelman, who has been the topic of Hall of Fame discussion, as countless publications have prognosticated about his chances.  It has ranged from good to zero, and if we can give our pair of pennies on it, it is this.

The New England Patriots Hall of Fame will nominate him, and the voting public will induct him.  When it happens, it should be celebrated by the Patriot fan base, and it will be.

As for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, we have said often and will say it here bluntly:  Edelman has no chance to make the Pro Football Hall of Fame. 

Zero.

Not only that, he will NEVER even be a Pro Football Hall of Fame semi-finalist.

This is not to diminish Edelman’s accomplishments, which is punctuated by his post-season accomplishments. He won three Super Bowls, won a Super Bowl MVP, and is second behind Jerry Rice in playoff Receiving Yards.  He produced more significant gridiron memories than many Hall of Famers, but his overall body of work falls well short of the bar, and that is one lofty horizontal plane.

For a football player to make the Hall, they have to be one of five chosen.  Edelman is not even in the top five of those who have already retired this year, as he is behind Drew Brees, Maurkice Pouncey, Jason Witten, Philip Rivers without question, and arguably a level below Greg Olson, Mike Pouncey and Mike Iupati.   Frank Gore and Adrian Peterson could be done.  It is also projected that Larry Fitzgerald could be done, meaning Edelman is not even close to being the top Wide Receiver to retire this year.

The glut of talent that retires exceeds those who are fighting to get in.  

What year will Julian Edelman be among the top five eligible players for the Hall?   For that matter, how about the top 15?  The top 25?  

It isn’t happening.

Running Back, LeSean McCoy, who also could be calling it a career, meaning that his eligibility will also be 2026, was asked about Edelman’s Hall of Fame chances by Yahoo Sports, and also his own:

Hall of Famer? No, come on, man

You have 16 weeks to showcase who you are, what you can do each year. The playoffs matter but a lot of guys don’t get a chance to play in the playoffs.  I won’t discredit him because I think he’s a great player, plays with a lot of heart, a lot of attitude, a lot of passion. I don’t want to rain on his parade because he’s retiring and he’s a hell of a player, but I don’t know about Hall of Fame

I think I’ve got a good shot at it.  I put my numbers up with any other running backs. In my decade I was the lead dog. I’ve got good numbers, touchdowns, yards, yards per carry, all those things. And you add two Super Bowls with it

In our 2020 pre-season list of active players based on Hall of Fame credentials, McCoy was ranked #31and #3 among Running Backs. McCoy, who was also chosen to the 2010’s All-Decade Team has a much better shot than Edelman, but he is not a lock.

The MLS started in 1996 in the US as a result of a bid to host the world cup in 1994. It was keen to make use of football’s popularity after one of the world’s most celebrated sports tournaments was held there.

The first championship game was won by D.C. United. They won the most league titles between that team and the Los Angeles Galaxy, with four championships each. 

MLS doesn’t yet come anywhere near the prestige of the English Premier League or other European football forms. Nevertheless, it has caused many well-known international stars from Grassroots football UK to join the league, thanks to greater exposure to the increasing American football market.

Beckham is One Major Star Who Joined the MLS

After joining back in 2007, he enabled Galaxy to achieve back to back wins in the MLS. Perhaps one of the best advantages of this is that it enhanced the league’s media attention through mainstream and entertainment media. 

Therefore, it can be argued that this helped raise the league’s profile somewhat, which clearly raised interest for the MLS for many Americans, similar to what Pele achieved back in the 70s.

Beckham is just one of 78 other players from the UK who have joined the MLS. Today, 10 are on current rosters, but since its beginnings in 1996, there have been another 68 other players involved.

Previously, Beckham was playing for Manchester United, a high-profile UK team who dominated the Premier League for many years. Unfortunately, their close rival Man City are outshining them completely this season, with City being given odds of 1/16 (1.06) of winning the Premier League, according to one UK online bookmaker.

Bradley Wright-Philips, Like Beckham, was Another Successful MLS Player

Recently taken on by LAFC, this former New York Red Bulls striker has played for some big UK teams. This includes Man City, Plymouth Argyle, Southampton, Brentford and Charlton Athletic. He then took up his MLS position in 2013. 

He has a reputation for being one of the best finishers in the league, scoring an impressive 27 goals over 32 regular-season games. 2014, in particular, was a standout year for him.

Working with Thierry Henry, he produced goal after goal. Upon finishing the league, he actually became the top scorer for it, with 24 goals over 34 games. 

So why is he so good at this? He’s speedy, intelligent and persistent, three factors that make him very dangerous.

Considering this, it’s no surprise that he comes in as 7th of all time on the scoring charts, tying with Jason Kries with 108 goals. 

What’s interesting is that Wright-Phillips took 195, compared to Kries with 305 games. He’s done well to have such a successful season, despite back in 2019 suffering from many different injuries. 

These days, he brings his top performance to LAFC, taking his place as a solid veteran striker for the club. 

Interestingly, his younger brother Shaun also seems to have followed in his footsteps, enjoying a successful stint with the Red Bulls between 2015 and 2016 before joining Phoenix Rising FC in 2017, before retiring at 37 in August 2019.

Have any Other Players Experienced Much Success with MLS?

Absolutely - there are a fair few! However, we feel that two, particularly Mandela Egbo and Saphir Taider, deserve specific mention.

Firstly, there’s Egbo, a former Crystal Palace player who, after playing for Borussia Monchengladbach in Bundesliga, then moved onto Darmstadt in the first half of this season in the German second tier. 

Despite not achieving outstanding success levels by other players like Jadon Sancho or Reece Oxford, this London born defender eventually joined the New York Red Bulls. 

Now, he’s looking to improve on the elimination of last season in the first round and the end of season playoffs.

Saphir Taider didn’t spend long in England after spending some time on loan with Southampton. This was cut short for some mysterious reason back in 2014, and he’d only had one chance to appear in one friendly before making a departure.

The good news is that this hasn’t appeared to affect him very much. He put in an impressive performance at Bologna before a good two further years at Montreal Impact. while on loan once more.

Luckily, a loan deal has now been permanent in the offseason, with two further players also benefiting from this in 2020: Lassi Lapalainen and Orji Okwonkwo.

Now 25 Years Old, the MLS has Come a Long Way from its Humble Beginnings

Starting in 1996 as a modest football tournament, the MLS has developed over the years, benefiting from much media attention thanks to major stars joining the league. The future of the league is looking bright and with exponential sums of money being invested into some clubs, the league may become competitive on a international scale.