Floyd Maywheather Named World's Highest Paid Athlete by Forbes

Golf legend, Tiger Woods was the highest paid sports man in the world for many years but not this year. Boxer Floyd Mayweather, who is currently serving a 3-month jail sentence for domestic assault, is now the highest paid athlete in the world, according to Forbes magazine’s list of the 100 highest-paid sports personalities over the past year. Mayweather is number 1, Manny Pacquia, 2, and Tiger Woods, 3, Lebron James, 4. Continue to see the top 10 highest paid athletes of 2011/2012...



 Forbes list of highest paid sports stars
1 Floyd Mayweather $85m (£54.25m)
2 Manny Pacquiao $62m (£39.57m)
3 Tiger Woods $59.4m (£37.92m)
4 LeBron James $53m (£33.84m)
5 Roger Federer $52.7m (£33.64)
6 Kobe Bryant $52.3m (£33.38m)
7 Phil Mickelson $47.8m (£30.51m)
8 David Beckham $46m (£29.36m)
9 Cristiano Ronaldo $42.5m (£27.10m)
10 Peyton Manning $42.4m (£27.06m)

Surprisingly, Olympic champion and world record-holding sprinter Usain Bolt, who is the most high-profile star of London 2012, was only 63rd with $20.3m (£12.96m) – just a quarter of Mayweather’s earnings.
 
Fernando Alonso comes in as Formula 1′s top earner at 19th with overall earnings of $29.4m (£18.7m).
MotoGP’s Valentino Rossi is 20th, seven-times F1 champion Michael Schumacher is 21st, while Lewis Hamilton is 24th after earning $17.8m (£11.3m), with $15.9m (£10.1m) of that in salary from McLaren.

Manchester United and England striker Wayne Rooney is at 37th with $15.5m (£9.8m), while Luke Donald, golf’s current world number one, is at 48th, earning $14.17m (£9m).

Only two women made it on to the list. Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova is 26th at $27.9m (£17.79m), while Li Na, China’s 2011 French Open champion Li Na, is 81st at $18.4m (£11.72m) after becoming the first Asian-born player to win a Grand Slam singles crown.