Who Makes the Most Bank – Musicians or Athletes?
Adam M. Young
| December 20, 2017
We examined the annual Forbes lists of the Top 25 highest paid Musicians and Athletes for the period between Jun. 2016 and Jun. 2017. It's Musicians vs Athletes, and we're crunching the numbers to see how they compare.
For sure, the Forbes analysis has some holes. The time frame isn’t ideal because it misses out on the seasonal tours and album releases as well as the beginning of the baseball season. Taylor Swift’s reputation album, for example, didn’t drop until November and her tour in 2018 doesn’t start until May. This means that her earnings will be much higher for next year’s rankings.
That said, it’s still interesting to look at the numbers and see who the fans are dropping their hard-earned money on.
To set the parameters, earning for this period includes all proceeds from music sold, concert tours, player salary and endorsements – all pretax. For the purposes of simplifying the analysis by categories, we’ve combined several of the music genres (after all, is Beyonce Pop or Contemporary R&B?). There’s a lot of confusion in this area and the fact is, there's a lot of crossover in themusic business. The categories for this analysis are: Pop/R&B, Rap/Hip Hop, Rock/Alternative, Country/Folk and DJ. The sports categories is much easier to classify since there are no Bo Jacksons or Deion Sanders playing two sports anymore.
It wasn’t a total landslide, but of the combined $2.8 Billion earned by the top 50 combined, the top 25 Musicians earned about $400 Million more than their athlete counterparts. In fact, the top three and seven out of the top ten are in the musician group.
Musicians: $1.58 Billion
Athletes: $1.18 Billion
Highest Overall: Diddy (Brother Love or Love) - $130M
This is interesting because Diddy did not release any new music in the time frame. His cash cows were the “Bad Boy Family Reunion Tour,” Ciroc Vodka and the sale of one-third of his Sean John fashion line. The sale earned him $70M.
1. Diddy $130M
2. Beyoncé $105M
3. Drake $94M
4. Cristiano Ronaldo $93M
5. The Weeknd $92M
6. Coldplay $88M
7. LeBron James $86M
8. Guns N’ Roses $84M
9. Justin Bieber $84M
10. Lionel Messi $80M
11. Bruce Springsteen $75M
12. Adele $69M
13. Metallica $67M
14. Roger Federer $64M
15. Kevin Durant $61M
16. Garth Brooks $60M
17. Elton John $60M
18. Paul McCartney $54M
19. Red Hot Chili Peppers $54M
20. Andrew Luck $50M
21. Rory McIlroy $50M
22. Jimmy Buffett $50M
23. James Harden $47M
24. Lewis Hamilton $46M
25. Drew Brees $45M
Musicians: $1.2B
Athletes: $0.7B
Of the Top 25 overall rankings, Musicians significantly out-earned Athletes.
Category Breakdowns
Rock/Alternative $520M
Pop/R&B $513M
Rap/Hip Hop $266M
Country/Folk $93M
DJ $83M
In a near tie, Rock/Alternative and Pop/R&B easily out-earned the other 3 categories by a nearly 2:1 margin.
NBA Basketball $388M
Soccer $244M
Golf $165M
Auto Racing $121M
Tennis $102M
NFL Football $95M
Track $34M
MMA $34M
NBA Basketball clearly out-earned all other categories with eight stars earning nearly $400M, followed by soccer with four in the Top 25. Soccer has 2 in the overall Top 25 with Cristiano Ronaldo weighing in at No. 4 with $93M and Lionel Messi earning $80M to take the No. overall spot. LeBron James is the top NBA and US athlete earner with $86M.
For sure, the Forbes analysis has some holes. The time frame isn’t ideal because it misses out on the seasonal tours and album releases as well as the beginning of the baseball season. Taylor Swift’s reputation album, for example, didn’t drop until November and her tour in 2018 doesn’t start until May. This means that her earnings will be much higher for next year’s rankings.
That said, it’s still interesting to look at the numbers and see who the fans are dropping their hard-earned money on.
To set the parameters, earning for this period includes all proceeds from music sold, concert tours, player salary and endorsements – all pretax. For the purposes of simplifying the analysis by categories, we’ve combined several of the music genres (after all, is Beyonce Pop or Contemporary R&B?). There’s a lot of confusion in this area and the fact is, there's a lot of crossover in themusic business. The categories for this analysis are: Pop/R&B, Rap/Hip Hop, Rock/Alternative, Country/Folk and DJ. The sports categories is much easier to classify since there are no Bo Jacksons or Deion Sanders playing two sports anymore.
The Results
It wasn’t a total landslide, but of the combined $2.8 Billion earned by the top 50 combined, the top 25 Musicians earned about $400 Million more than their athlete counterparts. In fact, the top three and seven out of the top ten are in the musician group.
Musicians: $1.58 Billion
Athletes: $1.18 Billion
Top overall individual earners among Athletes and Musicians
Highest Overall: Diddy (Brother Love or Love) - $130M
This is interesting because Diddy did not release any new music in the time frame. His cash cows were the “Bad Boy Family Reunion Tour,” Ciroc Vodka and the sale of one-third of his Sean John fashion line. The sale earned him $70M.
The Top 25 Overall
1. Diddy $130M
2. Beyoncé $105M
3. Drake $94M
4. Cristiano Ronaldo $93M
5. The Weeknd $92M
6. Coldplay $88M
7. LeBron James $86M
8. Guns N’ Roses $84M
9. Justin Bieber $84M
10. Lionel Messi $80M
11. Bruce Springsteen $75M
12. Adele $69M
13. Metallica $67M
14. Roger Federer $64M
15. Kevin Durant $61M
16. Garth Brooks $60M
17. Elton John $60M
18. Paul McCartney $54M
19. Red Hot Chili Peppers $54M
20. Andrew Luck $50M
21. Rory McIlroy $50M
22. Jimmy Buffett $50M
23. James Harden $47M
24. Lewis Hamilton $46M
25. Drew Brees $45M
Total by Category
Musicians: $1.2B
Athletes: $0.7B
Of the Top 25 overall rankings, Musicians significantly out-earned Athletes.
Category Breakdowns
Earnings Among the Top 25 by Music Category
Rock/Alternative $520M
Pop/R&B $513M
Rap/Hip Hop $266M
Country/Folk $93M
DJ $83M
In a near tie, Rock/Alternative and Pop/R&B easily out-earned the other 3 categories by a nearly 2:1 margin.
Earnings Among the Top 25 by Athlete Category
NBA Basketball $388M
Soccer $244M
Golf $165M
Auto Racing $121M
Tennis $102M
NFL Football $95M
Track $34M
MMA $34M
NBA Basketball clearly out-earned all other categories with eight stars earning nearly $400M, followed by soccer with four in the Top 25. Soccer has 2 in the overall Top 25 with Cristiano Ronaldo weighing in at No. 4 with $93M and Lionel Messi earning $80M to take the No. overall spot. LeBron James is the top NBA and US athlete earner with $86M.
