Forbes highest-paid athletes: All you need to know about Kohli's earnings

In the Forbes top 100 highest-paid athletes list, swashbuckling skipper Virat Kohli has jumped 30 places from last year’s 96^th position and again become the only Indian, cricketer to feature in the list.

 

The 20-grand slam champion Roger Federer tops the list with $106.3 million earnings while Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo finds a second spot with $105 million earnings. Ronaldo is followed by arch-rival Lionel Messi ($104 million) and Brazilian Neymar ($95.5 million).

 

However, the Forbes also reported that due to coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic almost every sport has seen a dip in the players earnings with America Football being an exception.

 

Here is the sport-by-sport breakdown of players earnings:

Sport	Cumulative earnings		Athletes in Top 100
	2019	2020	2019	2020
Basketball	$1.3 billion	$1.2 billion	35	35
Football	$926 mn	$773 mn	19	31
Soccer	$607 mn	$613 mn	12	14
Tennis	$245 mn	$296 mn	5	6
Boxing/MMA	$278 mn	$236 mn	6	5
Golf	$215 mn	$183 mn	5	4
Racing	$95 mn	$119 mn	2	3
Baseball	$468 mn	$27 mn	15	1
Cricket	$26 mn	$26 mn	1	1
Source: Forbes.com

 

The figures released by Forbes this year include all prize money, salaries and bonuses earned between June 1, 2019, and June 1, 2020.

 

Distribution of Virat Kohli earnings:

• Salaries/Winnings: $2 million
• BCCI: Grade A+ category

BCCI retention fee: Virat Kohli earns a retention fee of $ 1 million from Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) annually while other $ 1 million is the prize money from international, domestic and bilateral competitions. This includes match fees, man of the match and series awards.

 

Endorsements: $ 24 million

The Indian cricket team captain Kohli is one of the highest-paid celebrities in India with endorsements from brands like Audi, Colgate-Palmolive, Flipkart, Google, Hero Motocorp, Puma, Uber, Valvoline and more. According to Forbes, he earns a total of $24 million through endorsements only.

 

Kohli also has a social media following of 134 million on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram which helped him to find most lucrative brand endorsements in India and he do paid promotion through his personal social media accounts as well.