Thread: The 50 highest-earning American athletes

The 50 highest-earning American athletes

By Jonah Freedman, Special to SI.com

You can't stop them -- you can only hope to re-sign them. Extracurricular scandals, contract holdouts and ugly labor negotiations seem to have rocked professional sports more than any other point in recent memory. And yet financially, athletes seem nearly bulletproof.

For the seventh consecutive year, SI.com has compiled a list of the 50 top-earning American athletes by salary, winnings, endorsements and appearance fees. The average earnings of those on the list have reached an all-time high of $26.2 million (up 11 percent from '09).

In a year in which Tiger Woods' image has been forever tarnished -- costing the perennial No. 1 tens of millions in endorsement dollars -- he still stayed ahead of the curve. Tiger's earnings were down more than $9 million from a year ago, but he still earned nearly $30 million more than the No. 2 athlete, fellow golfer Phil Mickelson.

Meanwhile, the NFL has its most prolific showing ever on our list: an unprecedented 15 players, thanks to a rash of contracts that pay out big in a 2010 season without a salary cap. This year's list also features 16 basketball players, 13 major leaguers, three NASCAR drivers, two golfers and one boxer.

The average income of the athletes on our International 20 list of the top-earning non-American sportsmen also broke a record: in excess of $30 million, as new No. 1 Roger Federer has become a financial force alongside the soccer and Formula 1 powerhouses.

Our findings consisted solely of salary, winnings, bonuses, endorsements and appearance fees. We consulted players' associations, tour records, agents and news reports. Our endorsement estimates for 2010 came from Burns Entertainment & Sports Marketing, other sports-marketing executives and analysts, and agents. Salary figures were based on current or most recently completed seasons (the upcoming 2010 season for the NFL). For winnings-based sports (auto racing, golf, tennis), we used the '09 calendar year. Boxing purses are from July '09 to June 2010. Candidates for the U.S. 50 had to be American citizens and currently active in their sports.

Read more: 2010 Fortunate 50 - SI.com

Originally Posted by MDR

That's what she said.

or what they said.