The Portuguese soccer star tops the ranking for the fourth-straight year

Lionel Messi may have more Ballon d’Or victories than Cristiano Ronaldo as world player of the year, but the Portuguese star remains the champion at the bank.

For the fourth consecutive year—and the sixth time out of the last 11—Cristiano Ronaldo has topped Forbes’s annual list of the world’s highest-paid athletes. And his US$300 million haul the last 12 months is bigger than ever before. Of course, a huge chunk of those earnings come from playing in the Saudi league for Al-Nassr, which paid the 41-year-old star US$235 million last season, while he earned an additional US$65 million off the pitch as pitchman for numerous brands including Binance, Nike, and Perplexity. Additionally, he’s an investor in a tech subsidiary of Herbalife, which he plowed US$7.5 million into last year. He also has a pretty impressive property portfolio, too.

The athlete who rose to second place in the rankings was also Saudi-aligned. Boxer Canelo Alvarez inked a deal to fight in Saudi Arabia in Riyadh and then fought again in Las Vegas later in the year, drawing the largest crowd to a match in Sin City history. His earnings from inside the squared-circle totaled US$160 million, while his business ventures and endorsement deals grossed the 35-year-old fighter US$10 million outside of the ring.

Rounding out the top three is Ronaldo’s longtime rival Lionel Messi, who brought home US$140 million the past year, splitting those earnings evenly between on-the-pitch and off-field activities. The 38-year-old living legend plies his trade for Miami FC and hopes to lead Argentina to a repeat as World Cup champion in 2026.

The first American athlete on Forbes’s list comes in at No. 4, with LeBron James making US$137.8 million, with a majority of that coming from off-court earnings. Below him is a fellow L.A. athlete, the Dodgers’s Shohei Ohtani, followed by Golden State Warrior Stephen Curry, Spanish golfer Jon Rahm, French soccer star Karim Benzema, Houston Rocket Kevin Durant, and F1 legend Lewis Hamilton rounding out the top 10.

While Ronaldo is one of the oldest athletes on this list, he’s still going strong and will likely top it again in 2027 for a fifth consecutive year. But we’re pretty sure he trade a lot of this wealth to hoist the World Cup trophy this summer.

The 10 highest paid athletes in the world 2026