Speaking of debt, Sports Illustrated released its
annual "Fortunate 50" report - a list of the 50 top-earning American athletes, combining both salary/winnings and endorsements.
Click the link above to read the whole list. Here are some of my favorites, especially those raking in the dough who are not even playing! (I've listed them according to their top 50 ranking.)
1. Tiger Woods - $99,700,000 (down from last year because of his knee injury and the ending of his Buick sponsorship.) $92 mil of that is endorsement money. How great a hold does Tiger have on this list? He has a $50 mill lead on 2nd place: Phil Mickelson.
4. Alex Rodriguez - $39,000,000. $33 mil is salary... remember this is for 1 year! That's about $204,000 per game - or $45,000 every time he goes to the plate. Wow.
10. Peyton Manning - $27,000,000. The NFL's highest on the list. But Peyton has tons of endorsements; his salary is only $14.5 mil.
11. Dale Earnhardt Jr. - $26,600,000 - Not even close to NASCAR's top winner, but easily NASCAR's top earner. $22 mil of his money is endorsements.
17. Stephon Marbury - $24,000,000 - Nearly all of this is salary paid by the New York Knicks as Marbury never played a minute. He was healthy, but NY refused to play him because of his poor attitude - but boy did they have to pay him!
22. Steve Francis - $22,000,000 - all salary, Francis did not play a minute in the NBA and was not even on a team! Portland had the privilege of signing this paycheck.
26. Barry Zito - $18,600,000 - all salary. This is one of my favorites. A couple of years ago the SF Giants signed Zito to a 7 year, $126 mil contract and Zito has been a losing pitcher ever since. Zito is due to make $20 mil a year through 2013.
28. Tom Brady - $18,000,000 - only 8 mil is in salary - what a bargain. However, his supermodel wife, Gisele Bundchen, is set to make $40 mil this year. It must be embarrassing to make less money then your wife! :)
44. Jason Schmidt - $15,750,000 - the LA Dodgers signed Schmidt to a 3 year/$47 mil contract. The Dodgers are glad they are finally in the last year of that deal - when the contract is finished, the pitcher will have played in 6 games. (And the Dodgers wish it wasn't that many, as Schmidt's post-surgery fast ball topped 84 on the radar.