FROM the pitch to social media – some of the world’s biggest sport stars are landing huge wins on both.
The eye-watering amount icons like Cristiano Ronaldo and David Beckham are making on Instagram has been revealed.
For every sponsored post they make, HopperHQ have calculated how much money each star pockets.
With their huge influence and millions of followers, footballers dominate the top ten rich list.
In fact, just two legends away from the beautiful game are marketable enough to make the cut.
Here are the top ten earners – making eye-watering sums some time for just the click of a button
10. Zlatan Ibrahimovic: £272,000 per post
The ex-Manchester United striker just about qualifies for the top ten.
After retiring last year, the Swede now works as a senior adviser at his former club AC Milan.
9. Ronaldinho: £322,000 per post
Ronaldinho recently rocked social media by causing chaos across London as he drove around in a pink Rolls-Royce to promote Nike’s new “Mad Brilliance” range.
His photoshoot in Oxford Street was plastered across his Instagram and he made huge money.
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8. Karim Benzema: £324,000 per post
Benzema makes the list for the first time in his career after becoming the poster boy of Saudi Arabian giants Al-Ittihad.
He has knocked Mo Salah out of the top ten.
7. David Beckham: £372,000 per post
Becks’ follower count and earnings on social media are up nine per cent and £31,000 per post – ELEVEN years after he retired.
He saw a huge rise in the attention he got on Instagram following the release of his Netflix documentary.
His MLS team, Inter Miami, also signed the likes of Lionel Messi, more on him later.
6. Kylian Mbappe: £503,000 per post
Despite an underwhelming Euro 2024, the France and Real Madrid star can pocket half a million per sponsored upload.
He recently did a post to promote watch brand Hublot.
5. LeBron James: £690,000 per post
The basketball legend has a huge 159m followers on Instagram.
And his popularity in the US have seen him endorse the likes of EA Sports and Nike online.
4. Neymar: £937,000 per post
Neymar has not played since November 2023 after suffering an ACL injury – but that hasn’t affected his marketablility.
He remains one of the faces of the Saudi Pro League after his switch to Al-Hilal.
The Brazilian also has a huge Instagram sponsorship deal with sports betting company Blaze since 2022.
3. Virat Kohli: £1.14m per post
Number crunchers say the cricketer’s success at the T20 World Cup helped him smash the one million barrier.
Kohli promotes to a huge 270 million people and he is without a doubt India’s biggest sports star.
2. Lionel Messi: £2.12m per post
With 504 million followers, brands like Adidas and Mastercard are regularly seen across Messi’s Instagram page.
And those posts can see him pocket over £2million every time.
1. Cristiano Ronaldo: £2.67m per post
CR7 comes out on top as he narrowly edges his long-term rival Messi for the fourth year in a row.
Deals with Nike, Binance and Visit Saudi have seen him remain as the man to beat.
Ultimate sports presenters rich list
TV sports presenters make a mint.
The biggest and best are signed up on yearly deals with the likes of the BBC, ITV and Sky for your viewing pleasure.
Laura Woods is dominating the media landscape at the moment, leading TNT Sports’ coverage and ITV’s.
Alex Scott and Jermaine Jenas are two of the fresher faces for the BBC’s sporting output.
Then, it’s the old guard of Gary Lineker and Mark Chapman who also command hefty fees for their Match of the Day programmes.
SunSport has taken a look at how those big names rank and compiled a list of the top 10 highest earning stars that grace our TV screens.
With number one worth a whopping £29.4million more than number 10!
Read the story and see the full list here.