PLAY FOR THE ENDORSEMENTS
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We know star athletes make a lot of money โ€” some might grumble that it's too much โ€” but what exactly does "a lot" mean? Using data from Forbes, the website HowMuch put together a chart that visualizes how much money the world's top 25 highest-paid athletes made in 2018 and, more interestingly, where their sources of income come from.

 

The vertical axis of the chart shows money that came from salaries or winnings and the horizontal axis represents endorsement deals made between athletes and sponsors. The size of the bubble corresponds to the scale of the athlete's compensation. 

From the chart, we can see that Floyd Mayweather has clearly won this round. His compensation, however, is an outlier in many ways. Not only is his pay more than twice the size of the earnings of Lionel Messi, the second highest-paid athlete, but also, unlike most of the athletes on this chart, the bulk of his pay came from his winnings, not endorsements. His success is unlikely to be repeatable though, HowMuch points out, as Mayweather's earnings came from a highly-anticipated match between him and Conor McGregor, who also made the list as the world's fourth highest-paid athlete. It's also not terribly surprising that Mayweather lags in endorsement income, given his terrible behavior outside the ring. 

[HowMuch]

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