Cristiano Ronaldo has become the first athlete from a team sport in almost 20 years to top Forbes annual list of the World's Highest Paid Athletes.

 

《福布斯》杂志全球收入最高的运动员，克里斯蒂亚诺·罗纳尔多成为近20年来团体运动中首位收入最高的运动员。
 

 

The financial magazine has calculated the earnings¹, including all salaries, prize-winnings and bonuses earned by active athletes between June 1, 2015 and June 1, 2016.

 

Forbes senior editor Kurt Badenhausen says they reflect a growing trend of higher and higher salaries in professional sport.

 

"We've seen an explosion in salaries with team sports, so the top paid guys in soccer, in basketball, in the NFL they can make -- with the NBA's new television contract -- we're seeing some of these guys make $30-, $40-, and in the case of Ronaldo and Messi, more than $50 million and then marketers are really concentrating their money in the top starts."

 

The top 100 athletes earned a total of 3.15 billion dollars over the last 12 months, a slight decrease from last year's earnings of 3.2 billion dollars, which received a boost² from the historic³ 460 million dollars earned by boxers⁴ Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, who topped last years list.

 

Ronaldo, with earnings of 88 million US Dollars, takes the top spot for the first time, which is also the first time for a soccer player.

 

This is the first time since 2000 that someone besides Mayweather or Tiger Woods has held the top spot.

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