These Are 2022’s Highest-Paid Athletes In The World And How Many Beers They Could Buy With Their Money

These Are 2022's Highest-Paid Athletes In The World And How Many Beers and Big Macs They Could Buy

Getty Image / Nick Cammett / Diamond Images


  • Here we see the 10 highest-paid athletes in the world for 2022 and how much they earned this year
  • Then we break that money down into how many beers they could afford as well as Big Macs if they’d prefer to spend their money on fast food
  • Read more WEALTH stories here

2022’s ten highest-paid athletes in the world bought in just shy of a billion dollars in earnings. That’s not their net worth. Collectively they are worth multiple billions of dollars but just this year the ten highest-earning athletes on the planet earned a combined $991.5 million.

At the top of that list is Argentinian soccer superstar Lionel Messi who is debatably the greatest soccer player in history. There are two more soccer stars on the list, Cristiano Ronaldo at #3 and Neymar Jr. at #4, but the rest of the list is pretty diverse in terms of the sports they play.

The annual list of the world’s highest-paid athletes was revealed this week by Forbes. That’s fine and all, we see it every year and 2022’s list is full of the same names we see every year, more or less. So I thought it would be interesting to see how many beers the highest-paid athletes could purchase with their 2022 earnings along with how many Big Macs and Teslas they could buy.

For this, I’ll be using national averages for the United States. The average price of a beer in the USA is $4.75, Big Macs are $5.81, and the Tesla Model S starts at $99,990.

2022’s Highest-Paid Athletes In The World And How Many Beers They Could Buy

1. Lionel Messi — $130 million ($75 million on-field, $55 million off-field)

Leo could afford:

27,368,421 beers
22,375,215 Big Macs
1,300 Tesla Model S vehicles

2. LeBron James — $121.2 million ($41.2 million on-court, $80 million off-court)

LeBron could afford:

25,515,790 beers
20,860,585 Big Macs
1,212 Tesla Model S

3. Cristiano Ronaldo — $115 million ($60 million on-field, $55 million off-field)

Cristiano could afford:

24,210,526 beers
19,793,459 Big Macs
1,150 Tesla Model S

4. Neymar Jr. — $95 million ($70 million on-field, $25 million off-filed)

Neymar could afford:

20,000,000 beers
16,351,119 Big Macs
950 Tesla Model S

5. Stephen Curry — $92.8 million ($45.8 million on-court, $47 million off-court)

Stephen Curry could afford:

19,536,842 beers
15,972,461 Big Macs
928 Tesla Model S

6. Kevin Durant — $92.1 million ($42.1 million on-court, $50 million off-court)

KD could buy:

19,389,473 beers
15,851,979 Big Macs
921 Tesla Model S

7. Roger Federer — $90.7 million ($0.7 million on-court, $90 million off-court)

Despite not really playing tennis, Federer could afford:

19,094,737 beers
15,611,015 Big Macs
907 Tesla Model S

8. Canelo Alvarez — $90 million ($85 million in-ring, $5 million out of the ring)

Canelo could purchase:

18,947,368 beers
15,490,537 Big Macs
900 Tesla Model S

9. Tom Brady — $83.9 million ($31.9 million on-field, $52 million off-field)

Tom Brady could afford:

17,663,157 beers
14,440,620 Big Macs
839 Tesla Model S

10. Giannis Antetokounmpo — $80.9 million ($39.9 million on-court, $41 million off-court)

If he wanted to, Giannis could purchase:

17,031,579 beers
13,924,369 Big Macs
809 Tesla Model S

For a little context here, that means that Lionel Messi could purchase 9,705,264 more beer than Tom Brady based on 2022 earnings alone. That’s not an insignificant amount of beer. And apparently, Leo’s not a big McDonald’s guy…

And if we all went to McDonald’s, LeBron James could buy 6,936,216 more Big Macs than Giannis Antetokounmpo. Lionel Messi could also afford about five hundred more Tesla Model S vehicles than Giannis. I’m not saying that Giannis isn’t rich but it’s hard to fathom the spending power of Messi.