The 50 Highest-Paid Athletes

List of the highest paid athletes in the world, professional athletes who make the most money annually. This is Forbes annual list of the highest-paid professional athletes, updated for 2013 (reflecting top 2012 earning). Forbes uses salaries, bonuses, prize money, appearance fees, licensing deals and endorsement contracts to determine which athletes earned the most during the previous year. (Taxes and fees paid to representatives like agents are not factored in.)

This list includes elite athletes from all sports -- from Cristiano Ronaldo in soccer to boxing sensation, Manny Pacquiao. The athletes on this list play 11 different sports and the most highly paid athletes tend to be baseball players. Americans dominate the list, but there are athletes from 23 different countries in the top 100. Nike has sponsorship deals with at least 75% of the most highly paid athletes in the world. The deals range from a $10,000 baseball glove deal to $20 million a year players like LeBron James and Tiger Woods, who are the faces behind massive product launches.

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