A Saudi payday may be harder to come by these days, but the Kingdom still boasts four of the 10 top-earning footballers, including a record-setting Cristiano Ronaldo.
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinbirnbaum/2024/10/17/the-worlds-highest-paid-soccer-players-2024/
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SportsTranscript
00:00Hi everybody, I'm Brittany Lewis, a reporter here at Forbes, joining me now is my colleague
00:07Justin Birnbaum, staff writer on the Sports Money team.
00:11Justin, thanks so much for coming.
00:12Thanks for having me, Brittany.
00:14Forbes' list of the world's highest paid soccer players for 2024 is out.
00:18So first, a big congratulations to you because you are the mastermind behind the list.
00:22But before we get to it, I want you to give us a number here.
00:25How much money did the world's 10 highest paid soccer players make?
00:30So we're projecting that the 10 highest paid soccer players in the world are going to earn
00:34a combined $983 million for the upcoming 2024-2025 season.
00:40It's a modest 2% rise over the number we put out last year, but the important thing to
00:44remember is this is just a massive elevation from the record a few years ago, which was
00:48around $650 million.
00:50So the numbers are way up in the last few years, and there's a couple interesting reasons
00:54behind that.
00:55And we will get into those reasons behind that because it is flirting with a billion.
00:58I mean, that is huge.
00:59So who topped the list this year and where did their earnings come from?
01:03Yeah, so I don't think anybody is going to be surprised to hear this, but the highest
01:07paid soccer player in the world that we're projecting for the upcoming season is Cristiano
01:12Ronaldo.
01:13He topped the list with $285 million in projected total earnings.
01:18About $220 million of that comes on the field from this massive deal he has to play in the
01:23Saudi Pro League with his Saudi Pro League club, Al Nasser.
01:27And he earns, we estimate, $65 million off the field.
01:31So Ronaldo tops it again.
01:33It's the second year in a row, the sixth time in the last decade.
01:36He's a global figure still, even though he's 39 years old, a very productive player on
01:41the pitch.
01:42And yeah.
01:43So financially, no one compares to Ronaldo on this list, but move down a bit for us.
01:47Go through the top five aside from him.
01:50Who are they?
01:51Yeah.
01:52Coming in at number two is Lionel Messi, his longtime rival on the other side of the greatest
01:56of all time debate.
01:58We have him at $135 million in projected total earnings.
02:01He's obviously playing for Inter Miami over in Major League Soccer now.
02:05At number three and number four, you have a pair of guys playing in the Saudi Pro League.
02:08The first is Neymar, who we have at $110 million in projected total earnings, and then Karim
02:13Benzema, who is $104 million in projected total earnings.
02:16And then at number five, a former number one on the list, is Kylian Mbappe, who now plays
02:20in Real Madrid.
02:22We have him at $90 million in total earnings.
02:24You broke down the list in a really interesting way.
02:27You break down what the players make on the field and what they make off the field.
02:31So who is the player who makes the top amount of money off the field?
02:35So that would be Lionel Messi.
02:37We estimate that he's at $75 million annually off the field.
02:41And you know, he's had a really interesting trajectory.
02:44He's obviously, you know, an incredibly, incredibly great player.
02:47He's in the greatest of all time debate.
02:49He's won a trophy case full of Ballon d'Ors, you know, given to the best soccer player
02:54every year.
02:56He's had a lot of success in the last few years.
02:58He won the World Cup.
03:00He won the Copa America, again, the second time in his career with Argentina, both Argentina.
03:05And this move that he made to the U.S. in July of 2023 has really supercharged him as
03:09well.
03:10Obviously, he was a very global figure.
03:11He was popular in South America, popular in Europe, but this has been a chance for him
03:14to really expose himself to the American audience.
03:18And he's ushered in kind of a revolution in Miami.
03:20It's changed the trajectory of Major League Soccer, and you know, a lot of people are
03:24optimistic that it's going to keep going and going.
03:26So aside from Major League Soccer, what other leagues around the world are represented on
03:30this year's list?
03:32So the Saudi Pro League claims the most spots with four players.
03:35We mentioned Ronaldo.
03:36There's also Saudi Armani, Karim Benzema, and Neymar.
03:41The Premier League, the English Premier League, has three players on the list with Erling
03:44Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, and Mohamed Salah.
03:47Then La Liga in Spain has two, but they're both in the same club, which is why I hesitated
03:52there for a second because I almost said Real Madrid first.
03:55And that's Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Jr.
03:57And then Messi is the lone representative for Major League Soccer.
04:00So talk a little bit about how Saudi Arabia's push into soccer affects the money flowing
04:05into the sport.
04:06Yeah.
04:07So last year, starting with Ronaldo, who agreed to go to Saudi in December and then eventually
04:14joined the club in January of last year, we saw this major push of the Saudi Pro League
04:20bringing players over.
04:22Last year, during the summer transfer window, they spent roughly a billion dollars on new
04:26player acquisitions, which is just an insane number for a country that was hardly a soccer
04:31power before this.
04:34It's been an interesting step for them because obviously they're an economy that's been so
04:39tied up in oil and kind of other things, and they've wanted to diversify away more towards
04:44tourism, entertainment, and investing in their soccer league was a way of doing that.
04:48We saw a similar thing in golf as well with the Live Golf League and how they were doing
04:52that.
04:53They've also made entrances in boxing and other sports as well.
04:56Esports is another one, too, where they're big.
04:58So they were kind of doing this thing where they were diversifying and investing in these
05:01players.
05:02They brought over a ton of stars.
05:04They brought over Ronaldo.
05:05They brought over Neymar.
05:06They brought over Benzema.
05:08And with the amount of money they weren't just paying for these players, but what they
05:11were paying to the players, it dwarfs many of the figures we see in other leagues across
05:17the sport.
05:18So that's kind of the obvious reason why you see so many Saudi players on this list is
05:22because last year these guys signed these massive contracts and they're still paying.
05:27So your list shows that Saudi Arabia is investing hundreds of millions into their players, but
05:33your story says that they've slowed their investment a bit.
05:36So why is that?
05:37So you can kind of look at macroeconomic reasons.
05:39And for one, the price of oil is languishing a little bit.
05:42And also, Saudi Arabia has committed to a lot of these mega projects that are going
05:45to cost billions and billions of dollars, and even for their $925 billion sovereign
05:50wealth fund, that's left them cash-strapped to a degree.
05:53But the reality is they've kind of come back down to earth.
05:57I believe transfer spending this summer was somewhere between $500 million and $600 million.
06:01I had the exact number in the story.
06:03It was, I think, $524 million, if I remember correctly.
06:07But in reality, they're just not going to sign the best players every summer.
06:10I know there were reports where a spokesman had said something to that effect.
06:14But also, they haven't necessarily seen massive changes from the investments they've made.
06:22One of the sources I talked to had said they're not seeing this attendance bump that they
06:25expected when they brought over all these stars.
06:27They've seen interest in other different things, but it hasn't directly translated.
06:30So they can't spend like this forever.
06:34Obviously there's going to be a point where the investments they make are going to have
06:37to pay off.
06:38And also, it's not just getting star players.
06:39They have to develop the infrastructure of the league, the young talent of the league.
06:43They have to export their own stars as well.
06:45So it's kind of a balance of those things.
06:48It's hard to say.
06:49I mean, obviously Saudi Arabia has put a lot into this project and want to be competitive
06:52in global soccer.
06:53So for all we know, they could ramp up the spending again.
06:57And obviously, like when Mohamed Salah, his contract in Liverpool ends, he's from Egypt,
07:02he's got ties to the Middle East, he's someone who could be a very expensive and lucrative
07:06target for them.
07:07So it's possible that they could ramp it back up again, but for all those reasons, we've
07:11seen it come down.
07:12Based on your reporting, it sounds like it's a good time to be a professional soccer player.
07:17The highest paid players in the world are making a combined almost billion dollars together.
07:23So what makes it now such a lucrative time to be a professional soccer player?
07:27Well, for one, there's a lot more money flowing into sports than there were years ago.
07:32And part of that's driven by broadcast rights, other new revenue streams that are popping
07:37up.
07:38But also I think one of the things that's really bolstering the cases of these guys
07:42is just how much of a celebrity you are when you're on the global soccer scene.
07:46I mean, Ronaldo has almost a billion followers between Instagram, Facebook, and ex-formerly
07:50Twitter.
07:52And he recently started a YouTube channel, and he got to a million subscribers in 90
07:56minutes, which set a record.
07:57And now he's got over 500 million views on a very small amount of videos, relatively
08:02speaking, and 65 million followers or so.
08:05But you see just how valuable these guys are with their audiences.
08:09Messi has 500 million Instagram followers.
08:11You know, you see him on, you go down to Miami, you see him on every billboard or so.
08:16So these guys have massive platforms.
08:18They can earn massive money off the field, on the field.
08:20You know, their clubs are making more and more and more.
08:22In certain cases, I mean, the Premier League has a great, you know, media rights deal that
08:26extends out to the U.S. too, in addition to their domestic rights deal.
08:29So there's more money flowing in.
08:31And you know, the one caveat I should mention is that, you know, there are financial fair
08:35play rules where you can only spend relative to what you make.
08:38So as long as these clubs keep finding ways to make more money, you'll be able to spend
08:42more money.
08:43So, yeah.
08:44Justin Birnbaum, I appreciate the reporting.
08:45Thanks so much for coming in.
08:47Thanks for having me.