Floyd Mayweather usurped by Cristiano Ronaldo as world’s highest-paid athlete

FLOYD MAYWEATHER is no longer the highest-paid athlete in the world, according to Forbes magazine.

Football icon Cristiano Ronaldo takes the top spot, the first time a footballer has ever done so, and just the second time an athlete from a team sport has done it after Michael Jordan.

Having topped the list three times out of the last four years, Mayweather drops to 16th after retiring (for now) from boxing in September.

Last year he was ranked first with a gargantuan haul of $300m, mainly thanks to his meeting with Manny Pacquiao last May.

He brought in $44million this year according to Forbes, $32m of which came from his 12-round routing of Andre Berto in September and the rest being made outside the ring, predominantly from his worldwide ‘victory tour’.

That brings his overall career earnings to $700million since turning professional in 1996.

It also means this is the first time since 2001 an athlete not named Floyd Mayweather or Tiger Woods has ranked first on the list.

There are just two other boxers on this year’s list. Pacquiao drops from the second place he enjoyed last year to 63rd. His blockbuster snoozefest against Mayweather last year made the two fighters clear leaders on the Forbes list, however the Filipino raked in $24million this year from just one fight.

He outpointed Timothy Bradley in their unneccessary rubber match, earning $21.5m for his efforts. His earnings out of the ring took a massive hit after he made comments comparing gay people to animals. Nike subsequently dropped him as one of their sponsored athletes.

Having also retired, Pacquiao’s career earnings are $200m less than Floyd’s, though it is also unclear whether he will stage a comeback.

Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, heir-apparent to Mayweather’s pay-per-view throne, sits at 92nd despite being a part of the two biggest PPV cards over the past 12 months. He outpointed Miguel Cotto in a career-defining win in November before flattening Amir Khan in May. They generated a combined 1.5m buys in the US.

Those fights earned him a cool $20m – $12m less than what Mayweather earned to sleepwalk past Berto – and earning a further $1.5m outside the ropes. That’s thanks to a recent endorsement from beer brand Tecate, and his ongoing sponsorships from Under Armour and Everlast.

The only other time Canelo has featured in the Forbes list was in 2014, when he was ranked 66th for earning a total of $21m, the majority of which came from his fight with Mayweather in September 2013.

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