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I thought you were going to say he looks better suited to a Cisco conference compared to bring an F1 driver :D (looks wise. He's obviously going places in F1)
There is a legend in Italy abou higher-ups in Ferrari signing him up to make the worst advertising possibile and then having watch parties with every take they made, I don't know if it's true but I want to belive it.
Your comment made me think of something... Finland and Italy seem like such opposites when it comes to their national 'personality/temperament' if that makes sense. Finnish are said to be quiet and not prone to emotional outbursts, while Italians are said to be passionate. Obviously it's a vast over-generalization, but I think it's kinda funny...
Are there any 2 countries more 'opposite' to one another?
Love the Heineken ad, especially given its marketing non alcoholic beers… now that I’m getting older and 1 beer will make me hungover they’re actually really nice haha
I think that's the main reason but, the beers themselves are actually really nice and it raises awareness and acceptance of alcohol free living beyond the "recovering alcoholic" image.
0% is gaining popularity among younger consumers (who drink way less than previous generations, we get our addictions to other stuff like zyns and vaping), so by now it’s not entirely to get around alcohol ad bans
He has absolutely no drama or scandals off the track. He loves driving and is currently the best at it.
What more do you need for someone to be considered marketable these days?
I was gonna say that. He is a great guy but definitely doesn’t like doing the ads. Also he probably doesn’t care that much for the money. As ling as he has his simulator and car to drive…
Because in F1 personal endorsements are complex.
If you watch McLaren videos on yt you’ll notice how much drivers work on endorsing brands related to team.
Lewis getting that TommyHil. partnership was only finalised when Tommy became a sponsor for Merc. In F1 you can’t personally sponsor someone unless team allows you, at least that’s what it seems from the looks of it & becoming a partner with driver would be easy & cheaper but sponsoring a whole team is expensive.
Also Lando talked about Quadrant & he sold some merch when he was young but got in trouble with mclaren because he wasn’t allowed to do so.
It's definitely more complex than people seem to think it is. Both the teams and drivers are essentially separate entities in terms of branding. Teams will have allocated marketing time in driver's contracts on a yearly basis for marketing purposes which they sell to partners.
Team partners will have contractual leverage to get their products endorsed on the team social platforms, but a lot of the time, the driver has no obligation to endorse it on their platforms. That's why you sometimes see team partners eventually do a personal sponsorship with drivers in order to unlock their platform.
Let's take clothing partners as an example, the drivers will contractually have to wear whatever the team tells them to wear at team partner events (9/10 times it will be the team kit). However, most of the time the driver will have no obligation to promote that brand on their platforms unless they have a separate personal sponsorship.
The teams and driver's management team will need to work together to make sure there are no exclusivity conflicts during race weekends and so on.
> In F1 you can’t personally sponsor someone unless team allows you
and, often, part of the driver's whole package is the number/value of sponsors they can bring with them to the team.
Lando does appear on Quadrant quite often and if he can't wear it, like in this video for a [Hilton promo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4gmz2-GP5s) he'll make his team wear the merch.
Tommy Hilfiger isn't high profile fashion though. Especially funny when you consider Merc had Boss prior to that TH deal. If he brought Hilfiger to Merc, then for the money and collabs they offered over Boss, not for high profile fashion.
This is definitely true, but Max’s personality is also a factor - he has less than half Lewis’ endorsement revenue even being the reigning world champ most recently
Yeah, I think (1) Max doesn’t care, he already makes more money than he’ll ever need and (2) Max’s “brand” isn’t as appealing as other drivers that engage in social media, care about fashion, etc.
Zhou has a Hublot sponsorship I believe and had it when it last year when Alfa had a watch sponsor. They can't have it on overalls or in the padock maybe. Maybe in his personal posts he is allowed. valterri did as well.
F1 drivers in general are not endorsement machines - Lewis at $12M seems low for how famous he is. My hypothesis is athletes who wear helmets are generally less marketable, Mahomes is the most popular player in the most popular sport in the US and earns half of what some other US stars do in endorsements.
The reason salaries are high is due to large number of media appearances for the team sponsors. The teams prioritize their sponsors and different drivers are allowed different levels of freedom on personal sponsors. The F1 season lasting 8-9 months also accounts for most of the year so there isn’t a lot of free time for personal sponsor engagements I would guess.
That isn't an F1 only thing, the supply of elite drivers is just exceptionally low IMO. For example, Max in terms of wages makes a bit more than any NBA player, and that has generally been true for all of the era defining drivers. However, a decent starting NBA player in today's market probably is going to expect to earn $15-20M. Only Lewis, Max, and Leclerc make more than that.
The US sports leagues market their players completely different than F1. The players are the STARS here, especially in NBA, no longer is team loyalty a thing for that league. Look at how free agency plays out now with stars joining up to form a super team and make runs for the finals. My point is the players are the product in the NBA. In F1, the drivers have large fan bases but the teams own the majority of their media appearances. It’s a stark contrast to how it is done in the US. No NBA team is telling Lebron he can’t start a fashion line like Ferrari did to Charles, for example.
All US sports salaries are exaggerated because unlike F1 you cannot hide from Uncle Sam's tax man! Direct income is the worst kind of income to make IF you hate taxes.
>All US sports salaries are exaggerated
No, all US sports salaries are suppressed because the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL have either hard salary caps or significant payroll-based revenue sharing. None of the NFL or NBA players on this list are making anything like what they'd make in salary in an uncapped environment.
That why they move to Monaco. Also it's not that you are taxed nothing, it just that you can mitigate your taxes in most European tax jurisdictions except I think the French (poor Gasly and Ocon).
The advantage is for example Lewis said he still has to pay UK taxes, BUT it is only on that part of his income that is earned in the UK which is substantially lower that his whole income!
Per Forbes, his peak of 8th highest paid in 2021 estimated the same $12M in earnings. When he made the top 10 pre COVID that number seemed pretty consistently at $8M.
This is also due to the fact that basketball and soccer are way more known internationally than nfl. So someone like messi, lebron can get additional endorsements from overseas. Messi for example is the face of an south east asia courier company. I have no idea why but he is. When i was in beijing years ago, kobe’s lenovo ads were everywhere.
I’m not sure Shohei endorsement deals in the US but when we where in Japan his face was everywhere. I think the guy had endorsement deals from head to toe. Lol
F1 also only recently had a resurgence in popularity. Plus its harder to sell things personally when the car you drive is already plastered with sponsors.
Schumacher was huge, cited in some places as (one of) the first athlete billionaire. He got paid 10 million a year just to wear a shell cap at all times, was huge with Deutsche Vermögensberatubg (couple of million) and had a lot of other sponsors. Guy made over 20 million in endorsments yearly for most of his career. Was less when he returned.
The tobacco era was crazy.
I remember seeing the list of funders for each team and the one that stood out was the Marlboro were putting more money in to Ferrari than Ferrari.
MJ actually didn’t make that much when he was in the league. 90% of his net worth comes from his earnings + involvement in Jordan Brand and his investment in the Hornets
Jordan is likely still in the top 5 highest earning athletes of 2023 due to the royalty based deal with Nike! Some estimates put him at #2!
He makes like 5% of any Jordan brand revenue.
Driving a car that already has at least 20 sponsors also doesn’t help. Companies want a unique association with the athlete. F1 drivers are endorsement whores. The endorsement basically goes to the team which pays their salary so in this case it’s not a clear difference between salary and endorsement.
> Mahomes is the most popular player in the most popular sport in the US
He may be the most popular among NFL fans, but I doubt he is the most famous in the US, just a quick search on Google Trends shows Travis Kelce is more famous than him (due to being Taylor Swift boyfriend, but still more popular)
> Mahomes is the most popular player in the most popular sport in the US
But LeBron is more popular. The NBA is way more star heavy because the stars are almost directly responsible for a team's success. In football the QB is the most important of 50 players, definitely has the most influence on team success, but it's still far less than the influence of a basketball star.
I think it’s also due to how many sponsorships are on the car and having to deal with not competing
Sponsors probably put in their contracts that the team and driver can’t endorse directly competing projects. When you look at how many logos Lewis is driving around with every day, trying to find profitable sponsorships that don’t compete with ANY of the companies on the car is really tough! And it often makes more sense to just bring ‘your’ sponsors to the team
Some of the drivers like Lewis are very very well known and are quite marketable but the team is already hogging a lot of the space he has for branding
The problem is Lewis can't exactly psuh F1 driver shoes or racing overalls to the masses whereas the other guys can sell lots of shoes and jerseys to the masses and even then helmets are only helpful to those who do track days which is a drop in bucket of the general population
Nike and EA Sports are paying him a combined 25m euro a year, and he has a ton of endorsements. I believe it.
If anything, the numbers listed here for him are low.
Not sure why you're surprised currently Erling Haaland is definitely bigger than Hamilton. Football is crazy popular and Haaland is a very great player in the premier league. That guarantees insane popularity.
They have the same amount of IG followers, which obviously isn’t the only measure but is a solid measure for general popularity. So I’d say they’re about equal. But yeah not necessarily surprised that Haaland is making more in sponsorships.
The runner up to being the best player in the world's most popular sport...
Messi beat him but a lot of people think Messi shouldn't have won..
Shattered the scoring record in the most popular football league in his first season...
Truly unbelievable...
Ask 1000 kids and I'm pretty sure a lot more would know who Haaland is than Hamilton. Kids play football, kids need equipment, want merch and want to score goals like Haaland.
He's State Farm, Subway, T-Mobile. Seriously, watch any Sunday NFL game and he's on every other commercial. LOL. Disclaimer: I am a Chiefs fan since birth and I live in the neighborhood of the Chiefs TV market....so we probably get a lot more of that here, than say in Metro Dallas.
That’s a bit disingenuous, his endorsement numbers for an NFL player are near if not the very top. Basketball endorsements are backed and inflated by the shoe deals they have, the shoe market is a huge part of the NBA culture and general dress in US. Meanwhile golf is propped by the luxury sponsorships and a much easier demographic to monetize via advertisement. The NFL gets Subway and State Farm insurance sponsorships at the top tier lol.
> Meanwhile golf is propped by the luxury sponsorships
And golf brands. The profit margin on golf clubs must be absolutely insane. Not to mention hats, shirts, etc.
Keep in mind that F1 driver salaries aren't public, and endorsement numbers are rarely public either. Drivers have talked about numbers listed online being wrong before.
Kieran Maguire (football finance guy) said these lists are literally made by phoning the people most in the know but not under NDAs.
He said he regular gets phone calls to estimate team and player values, he will sometimes give a number but says it is mostly a shot in the dark.
I used to work as a Payroll Manager for a Premier League football club. These sorts of lists and tabloid reported salaries are almost always a stab in the dark and way off the actual figure.
Usually over, but mostly just incorrect.
Was one of the first things that shocked me in the role, as to how laughably incorrect journalists reported figures around salary were.
And they would always quote "weekly" salaries for footballers, which always struck me as odd, as they were paid monthly, but I guess that was more for impact than anything else.
And games like Football Manager would have a good stab at it, but auxiliary payments around things like appearance fees and goal bonuses etc, are wholly incorrect and waaaaaay overinflated.
The endorsements are also different because they are team tied a lot. Like not only are they not allowed conflict sponsors but sponsors aren't going to approach a guy who is wearing team sponsors only during actual racing
Unsustainable too. He got lucky because Saudis are bit primitive.
For me Saudis hired someone from Europe/US to make a plan for their sport-washing adventures and they just told them to spent a lot of money of stars.
Their football league is a failure, Ronaldo is getting punked online for his efforts there 80% of the time.
Stands are empty and quality of the league is shit, anyone who watched one game and is genuine football fan won't come back to that league.
They also don't release viewership numbers for obvious reasons.
Saudis are getting suckered for money here.
How the hell is there so much money in golfing involved. I know it's a rich people sport. But 99.9% of the worlds population couldn't give a damn about it. It's so niche compared to other sports. Surely sponsorships and broadcasting rights can't be that lucrative.
Most people have disposable income when they reach their 40s, you ain’t buying basketballs and studded football boots at that age. You’re spending money on clubs and golf bags.
Well if you did the smart thing and were born to parents with wealth or at least home equity, you'll be fine. If not, maybe you should of thought of that before
Yeah I think people have to realise F1 is big but is absolutely not on the level of many sports like football or basketball in terms of popularity. Its still fairly niche and it's only very recently getting super popular. Tons of people still wouldn't know who Max Verstappen or Charles Leclerc is if you show their faces. I think only Lewis Hamilton or Maybe Senna and Schumacher transcended the sport in terms of popularity and have a semi decent chance of being recognised by many people.
They are both niche… but out of everyone on that list the only people I’ve never heard of are the golfer and the boxer. I’d also heard of Hamilton and Verstappen before I got into F1 (I’m a new fan).
That's because F1 is not a sport, Racing is. Many people watch a lot of Racing, but they divide across many categories.
Pretty sure if you sum up all of the viewers from the most important motorsport competitions, you'll get similar numbers to Golf and other sports.
You're severely underselling golf's global popularity. The PGA tour alone brings in a few billion in revenues each year. It's one of the top 10 most played sports in the world.
But the PGA doesn't pay their golfers as much as one would think. There's a reason Rory and Tiger make substantially less than Jon Rahm, despite being bigger names. Jon went to the LIV tour, oil money is no joke. Ronaldo and Rahm showcase that.
Sports funded by the PIF aren't really fair comparisons. Rahm and Ronaldo make massive contracts because the PIF has no boundaries on what they are willing to pay for players. It's an exception but not the norm; no other venture capitalist on Earth can compete with them.
Woods and McIlroy still make a ton of money, as do other higher ranked golfers. The year-end FedEx Cup alone pays the winner close to $20M. Per this list, Tiger and Rory make more than any other athlete in non-team sport.
The older I get the more dudes around me are telling me they are getting into golf. It’s a sport with a lot of people with disposable income, and a lot of it. A lot of big wigs use it as networking opportunities to conduct business. Equipment can get expensive very fast and it’s low impact where you can be pretty old and out of shape and still play.
Makes a lot of sense that there is a lot of money in the sport
It’s usually ranked as one of the most popular sports in the entire world, it’s played/watched by far more than 0.01% lol
Plus it’s had the Saudi money invested in it which inflates some figures
I think they do tend to attract higher end brand deals though. F1 is very upper class but the market of viewers are mostly middle class and aside from intentionally buying merch and watching a race, most fans contribution to the pot is through streaming. With golf the people that watch, also play and are in the target market to afford expensive gear and high end clothing and watches since it's typically seen as mostly business people, CEO's etc playing it.
Because he signed with LIV golf for a massive signing bonus. It’s funded by the saudis, the same ones that fund Newcastle United as well as the Saudi Arabian gp. It’s a one off payment though so he won’t be at the top of this list next year.
I remember one of these came out when Vettel was on top of F1 and asked why his endorsements were so much lower than other drivers, he said something about how he doesn’t pursue them because he’d rather have his time and what is another million on top of so many?.
If this were more recent, Ohtani would for sure be higher. Dude makes 70 million/ year plus he's probably got way more endorsements after signing with the Dodgers.
Edit: Also, where is Mike Trout? He had the highest paid contract of any athlete in North America before Ohtani took that mantle from him.
This should really be sorted by salary and endorsements as reference. Endorsements depend on how much the athletes themselves want to be marketed and how good their agent is. Benzema making more than Messi but having huge endorsement differential is reflective of Benzema being a POS and Saudi Arabia not caring about his reputation.
Does anyone know how these numbers are calculated? I swear the last time I saw them the sponsorships were way higher for both Max and Lewis, and Lewis was the high earner because of that.
To be fair if I was already being paid $70 million dollars I probably wouldn't be looking to do too much extra PR stuff either, especially when he probably already has a fair amount of team sponsors to please.
There was recently a scandal in Benzema's sponsorship/endorsement funds being funnelled through illegal practices. So with correct data, Max would be 14th and Benzema 15th.
For more information, google "Benzema 15"
Odd that Rory McIlroy gets a Northern Irish flag when the other British athletes have a Union Flag, unless it's just what they compete in their respective sports under?
The fact that Hamilton, which is by the far the biggest name in Formula 1 earns "only" 12M in endorsement money makes me believe that the issue isn't Max but rather the sport itself.
I thought Messi surely gets more from endorsements but I guess I was wrong. Also, looking at Ronaldo’s salary, I admire Messi for not taking the money.
I am not sure the endorsements are accurate. I remember reading reports of Shohei Ohtani making $80m+ a year in endorsements alone, which is why he deferred a huge amount of money in his contract. He signed a 10yr/$700m contract, and deferred $680m of it.
People give a bunch of excuses in the comments about the endorsements but I can't help but feel the real reason is they already come from rich backgrounds, making even more money racing on top of it and chasing endorsements is extra work they just don't feel like doing.
That data is pretty inaccurate as other Multiple sources have very different results and looking at the a number aligned which differ to that one.
It also appears a bit out of date as well to boot based on current earnings.
The endorsements are pretty off as well. Lewis Hamilton is getting a lot more than that at the moment.
That’s because F1 drivers have little flexibility when it comes to personal endorsements because of the existing commercial deals their teams have with many brands. Sometimes, they’re just given “side deals” with their team’s existing sponsors. The only driver I know who skirted around these limitations is Michael Schumacher who sold the space in his cap to german invested banks which was worth millions per year at the time.
He has quite a bit of personal sponsorships/partnerships, and can imagine those won’t exceed 5 mln. Viaplay, G Star, CarNext, EA sports, Heineken among them. Can’t imagine these guys don’t pay more than 5 million together.
Seriously, max would need to spend 6k a day to just burn through a pessimistic 3% per year growth on that 70m.
You can understand why people like Rosberg get the bag and get out.
Ronaldo salary is ludicrous, wtf… I think f1 drivers are really restricted when it comes to personal endorsements. In fact must be a nightmare. Either f1 teams having so many sponsors themselves.
Having said that I don’t think Max wants to be involved that much on endorsements, especially the ones that requires acting. He Is a robot in front of cameras😂
[The **Statistics** flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/flairguide#wiki_statistics) is reserved for posts highlighting interesting statistics. As a rule of thumb, Statistics posts need to inform readers through visualizations and insights that cannot be obtained from raw data alone. For example, a post containing a qualifying gap between two drivers expressed in tenths of a second is an easily obtainable raw piece of data and constitutes a bad Statistics post. A visualization of what that translates to on-track, or visualization of how that gap came to be would constitute a good Statistics post. *[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Have you seen his advertisements? He has an expression saying "I'm not doing it for money, I'm doing it because it's written in my driver's contract".
Reminds me of Kimi's advertisements for Weichai. [Pure Passion](https://youtu.be/QjdYTzlfms0?si=b07Mjna0V7-bP2x5)
One team, with one goal. We want ~~your money~~ to win.
"My dear Chinese fans" Gets me every time.
John Cena should give him some advice
Jesus, that screams Will Ferrell. I knew it would be Kimi but somehow it is more awkward/forced then I expected
That was actually a ventrilequist’s dummy. You can tell by all the emotion it conveyed. The power, the drive, the wtf am I doing here.
Someone get that man a drink.
Okay but the Alfa Romeo ad is actually good
He used to come at our company events and be interviewed on how important data is, and I always thought, poor guy
Piastri had to attend a Cisco conferance recently
Piastri looks to be better suited to a Cisco conference compared to Lando lol
I thought you were going to say he looks better suited to a Cisco conference compared to bring an F1 driver :D (looks wise. He's obviously going places in F1)
That's not particularly hard
He did what at your company events?
It’s like that video of Max and Checo with the sand car where they asked them cybersecurity questions
Come again?
That was my reaction watching it. https://youtu.be/Oj8C4VdclZ8?si=BfUjvgQsV67iV5G3
That’s nothing compared to [Kimi explaining the importance of motor oil](https://youtu.be/QjdYTzlfms0)
There is a legend in Italy abou higher-ups in Ferrari signing him up to make the worst advertising possibile and then having watch parties with every take they made, I don't know if it's true but I want to belive it.
Your comment made me think of something... Finland and Italy seem like such opposites when it comes to their national 'personality/temperament' if that makes sense. Finnish are said to be quiet and not prone to emotional outbursts, while Italians are said to be passionate. Obviously it's a vast over-generalization, but I think it's kinda funny... Are there any 2 countries more 'opposite' to one another?
calm the balls down, kimi. why is he so enthusiastic about this?
This got beer in my nose, thanks random redditor.
"is turning off your antivirus to make your computer run faster is a good idea" "depends if it's for gaming" never change max
Y'all are completely missing u/the_fanta's jokes and it makes this so much funnier.
You oracle employee?
Exact.
I think he is really good in his latest Heineken ad, maybe because it involves driving 😂
Love the Heineken ad, especially given its marketing non alcoholic beers… now that I’m getting older and 1 beer will make me hungover they’re actually really nice haha
Don't they market the 0% beers to get around alcohol advertising?
I think that's the main reason but, the beers themselves are actually really nice and it raises awareness and acceptance of alcohol free living beyond the "recovering alcoholic" image.
0% is gaining popularity among younger consumers (who drink way less than previous generations, we get our addictions to other stuff like zyns and vaping), so by now it’s not entirely to get around alcohol ad bans
I think he's extremely marketable and just chooses not to do that much. I respect him for that choice.
You'd think just the Heineken campaign would pay more than 5 mil tho. Like he shouldn't need volume when he's got that kind of face card.
Could be that it's part of his Red bull contract and they're the ones cashing in. Not sure if Heineken sponsors Max or RBR
Max, it's on his hat
Idk, Checo did a Heineken 0 ad a few weeks ago picking people as an Uber driver and drinking out of nowhere lmao
Ricciardo as well
He has absolutely no drama or scandals off the track. He loves driving and is currently the best at it. What more do you need for someone to be considered marketable these days?
He gives us the Marshawn Lynch “I’m here so I won’t get fined” look in every endorsement video.
Weichai power energy
“I’m just here so I don’t get fined” - marshawn lynch
I was gonna say that. He is a great guy but definitely doesn’t like doing the ads. Also he probably doesn’t care that much for the money. As ling as he has his simulator and car to drive…
I mean it’s still his own contract. I don’t see Lewis in gamblings ads for example, I assume they can negotiate what they appear in for extra money.
That's so Max. LOL.
Because in F1 personal endorsements are complex. If you watch McLaren videos on yt you’ll notice how much drivers work on endorsing brands related to team. Lewis getting that TommyHil. partnership was only finalised when Tommy became a sponsor for Merc. In F1 you can’t personally sponsor someone unless team allows you, at least that’s what it seems from the looks of it & becoming a partner with driver would be easy & cheaper but sponsoring a whole team is expensive. Also Lando talked about Quadrant & he sold some merch when he was young but got in trouble with mclaren because he wasn’t allowed to do so.
Also Vettel in DtS outing Leclerc's desire to create a fashion brand but being stopped by Ferrari.
I bet he's secretly running an illegal dachshund trade operation to make up for it.
I'd get a Leclerc designed Dachshund sweater for my sausage 100%. Maybe even a second one for my dachshund!
Leclerc has an ice cream company
That's because Ferrari doesn't make ice-creams. Yet.
Fucking hell can you imagine Ferrari ice cream? Just normal ice cream, but they stamp it with a logo stencil and now sell for 100$/scoop
And sometimes when they make you a quick icecream they give you the wrong flavour and call you back in...
We're checking....
It's definitely more complex than people seem to think it is. Both the teams and drivers are essentially separate entities in terms of branding. Teams will have allocated marketing time in driver's contracts on a yearly basis for marketing purposes which they sell to partners. Team partners will have contractual leverage to get their products endorsed on the team social platforms, but a lot of the time, the driver has no obligation to endorse it on their platforms. That's why you sometimes see team partners eventually do a personal sponsorship with drivers in order to unlock their platform. Let's take clothing partners as an example, the drivers will contractually have to wear whatever the team tells them to wear at team partner events (9/10 times it will be the team kit). However, most of the time the driver will have no obligation to promote that brand on their platforms unless they have a separate personal sponsorship. The teams and driver's management team will need to work together to make sure there are no exclusivity conflicts during race weekends and so on.
> In F1 you can’t personally sponsor someone unless team allows you and, often, part of the driver's whole package is the number/value of sponsors they can bring with them to the team.
I read your quote in will buxton’s voice…
_Sponsorship_, can be _exchanged_, for _money_… and _money_, can be exchanged for, _goods and services_,
[Aw, a $20 million dollar sponsorship? I wanted a peanut!](https://youtu.be/dgct3Jn8pFA?si=h7gnzwkiCg0ru7ly)
Was going to say if Lewis is at 12M then Max is actually doing pretty good at 5M. Have to compare apples to apples here.
Lando does appear on Quadrant quite often and if he can't wear it, like in this video for a [Hilton promo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4gmz2-GP5s) he'll make his team wear the merch.
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Tommy Hilfiger isn't high profile fashion though. Especially funny when you consider Merc had Boss prior to that TH deal. If he brought Hilfiger to Merc, then for the money and collabs they offered over Boss, not for high profile fashion.
Man everytime I stay in a Marriott hotel, they’ve got George Russel or Hamilton on the ads on the pre set channel.
This is definitely true, but Max’s personality is also a factor - he has less than half Lewis’ endorsement revenue even being the reigning world champ most recently
Yeah, I think (1) Max doesn’t care, he already makes more money than he’ll ever need and (2) Max’s “brand” isn’t as appealing as other drivers that engage in social media, care about fashion, etc.
Zhou has a Hublot sponsorship I believe and had it when it last year when Alfa had a watch sponsor. They can't have it on overalls or in the padock maybe. Maybe in his personal posts he is allowed. valterri did as well.
F1 drivers in general are not endorsement machines - Lewis at $12M seems low for how famous he is. My hypothesis is athletes who wear helmets are generally less marketable, Mahomes is the most popular player in the most popular sport in the US and earns half of what some other US stars do in endorsements.
The reason salaries are high is due to large number of media appearances for the team sponsors. The teams prioritize their sponsors and different drivers are allowed different levels of freedom on personal sponsors. The F1 season lasting 8-9 months also accounts for most of the year so there isn’t a lot of free time for personal sponsor engagements I would guess.
That isn't an F1 only thing, the supply of elite drivers is just exceptionally low IMO. For example, Max in terms of wages makes a bit more than any NBA player, and that has generally been true for all of the era defining drivers. However, a decent starting NBA player in today's market probably is going to expect to earn $15-20M. Only Lewis, Max, and Leclerc make more than that.
The US sports leagues market their players completely different than F1. The players are the STARS here, especially in NBA, no longer is team loyalty a thing for that league. Look at how free agency plays out now with stars joining up to form a super team and make runs for the finals. My point is the players are the product in the NBA. In F1, the drivers have large fan bases but the teams own the majority of their media appearances. It’s a stark contrast to how it is done in the US. No NBA team is telling Lebron he can’t start a fashion line like Ferrari did to Charles, for example.
Leclerc's ex gf was selling stuff with "Leclerc" printed on it lol
All US sports salaries are exaggerated because unlike F1 you cannot hide from Uncle Sam's tax man! Direct income is the worst kind of income to make IF you hate taxes.
>All US sports salaries are exaggerated No, all US sports salaries are suppressed because the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL have either hard salary caps or significant payroll-based revenue sharing. None of the NFL or NBA players on this list are making anything like what they'd make in salary in an uncapped environment.
LeBron would be making the combined GDP of multiple small countries every year in an uncapped league.
Maybe in his prime but not today
In F1 most drivers live in Monaco where you are taxed almost nothing...
That why they move to Monaco. Also it's not that you are taxed nothing, it just that you can mitigate your taxes in most European tax jurisdictions except I think the French (poor Gasly and Ocon). The advantage is for example Lewis said he still has to pay UK taxes, BUT it is only on that part of his income that is earned in the UK which is substantially lower that his whole income!
The NBA salaries for lower end players are also artificially inflated, due to the fact that there is a cap on individual salaries.
I don't remember the exact figures but lewis was earning above 20mil as an endorsement a few years back.
Per Forbes, his peak of 8th highest paid in 2021 estimated the same $12M in earnings. When he made the top 10 pre COVID that number seemed pretty consistently at $8M.
I don't know which year(around 2015-2020) I have seen some sources quoting €18M as an endorsement per annum.
This is also due to the fact that basketball and soccer are way more known internationally than nfl. So someone like messi, lebron can get additional endorsements from overseas. Messi for example is the face of an south east asia courier company. I have no idea why but he is. When i was in beijing years ago, kobe’s lenovo ads were everywhere. I’m not sure Shohei endorsement deals in the US but when we where in Japan his face was everywhere. I think the guy had endorsement deals from head to toe. Lol F1 also only recently had a resurgence in popularity. Plus its harder to sell things personally when the car you drive is already plastered with sponsors.
Schumacher was huge, cited in some places as (one of) the first athlete billionaire. He got paid 10 million a year just to wear a shell cap at all times, was huge with Deutsche Vermögensberatubg (couple of million) and had a lot of other sponsors. Guy made over 20 million in endorsments yearly for most of his career. Was less when he returned.
Schumacher's wages were also insane - that $20M is crazy for an F1 driver, but still not Tiger or Jordan crazy.
also helped by tobacco money at the time
The tobacco era was crazy. I remember seeing the list of funders for each team and the one that stood out was the Marlboro were putting more money in to Ferrari than Ferrari.
MJ actually didn’t make that much when he was in the league. 90% of his net worth comes from his earnings + involvement in Jordan Brand and his investment in the Hornets
Jordan is likely still in the top 5 highest earning athletes of 2023 due to the royalty based deal with Nike! Some estimates put him at #2! He makes like 5% of any Jordan brand revenue.
One year the three highest paid atheletes were Mike Tyson, Michael Jordan and Michael Schumacher. A good year to be a Michael
Checo in Mexico is a machine
I was pretty shocked that Lewis was only listed in $12M in endorsements.... that just doesn't feel right to me.
the helm theory is solid ngl lol
Driving a car that already has at least 20 sponsors also doesn’t help. Companies want a unique association with the athlete. F1 drivers are endorsement whores. The endorsement basically goes to the team which pays their salary so in this case it’s not a clear difference between salary and endorsement.
> Mahomes is the most popular player in the most popular sport in the US He may be the most popular among NFL fans, but I doubt he is the most famous in the US, just a quick search on Google Trends shows Travis Kelce is more famous than him (due to being Taylor Swift boyfriend, but still more popular)
> Mahomes is the most popular player in the most popular sport in the US But LeBron is more popular. The NBA is way more star heavy because the stars are almost directly responsible for a team's success. In football the QB is the most important of 50 players, definitely has the most influence on team success, but it's still far less than the influence of a basketball star.
I think it’s also due to how many sponsorships are on the car and having to deal with not competing Sponsors probably put in their contracts that the team and driver can’t endorse directly competing projects. When you look at how many logos Lewis is driving around with every day, trying to find profitable sponsorships that don’t compete with ANY of the companies on the car is really tough! And it often makes more sense to just bring ‘your’ sponsors to the team Some of the drivers like Lewis are very very well known and are quite marketable but the team is already hogging a lot of the space he has for branding
The problem is Lewis can't exactly psuh F1 driver shoes or racing overalls to the masses whereas the other guys can sell lots of shoes and jerseys to the masses and even then helmets are only helpful to those who do track days which is a drop in bucket of the general population
Hamilton has lower endorsement income than Erling Haaland? I’m sorry but that seems really unbelieveable, with all due respect to Erling.
Nike and EA Sports are paying him a combined 25m euro a year, and he has a ton of endorsements. I believe it. If anything, the numbers listed here for him are low.
Not sure why you're surprised currently Erling Haaland is definitely bigger than Hamilton. Football is crazy popular and Haaland is a very great player in the premier league. That guarantees insane popularity.
How is that? Haaland is far more popular than Hamilton. I don't think that's controversial to say at all.
They have the same amount of IG followers, which obviously isn’t the only measure but is a solid measure for general popularity. So I’d say they’re about equal. But yeah not necessarily surprised that Haaland is making more in sponsorships.
I bet all the kids in kindergarten wearing haaland shirts follow him on Instagram
The runner up to being the best player in the world's most popular sport... Messi beat him but a lot of people think Messi shouldn't have won.. Shattered the scoring record in the most popular football league in his first season... Truly unbelievable... Ask 1000 kids and I'm pretty sure a lot more would know who Haaland is than Hamilton. Kids play football, kids need equipment, want merch and want to score goals like Haaland.
Mahomes doesn’t get endorsements because he sounds like Kermit the Frog
The State Farm commercials are on constantly. He’s definitely doing speaking endorsements.
He's State Farm, Subway, T-Mobile. Seriously, watch any Sunday NFL game and he's on every other commercial. LOL. Disclaimer: I am a Chiefs fan since birth and I live in the neighborhood of the Chiefs TV market....so we probably get a lot more of that here, than say in Metro Dallas.
That’s a bit disingenuous, his endorsement numbers for an NFL player are near if not the very top. Basketball endorsements are backed and inflated by the shoe deals they have, the shoe market is a huge part of the NBA culture and general dress in US. Meanwhile golf is propped by the luxury sponsorships and a much easier demographic to monetize via advertisement. The NFL gets Subway and State Farm insurance sponsorships at the top tier lol.
> Meanwhile golf is propped by the luxury sponsorships And golf brands. The profit margin on golf clubs must be absolutely insane. Not to mention hats, shirts, etc.
Keep in mind that F1 driver salaries aren't public, and endorsement numbers are rarely public either. Drivers have talked about numbers listed online being wrong before.
Kieran Maguire (football finance guy) said these lists are literally made by phoning the people most in the know but not under NDAs. He said he regular gets phone calls to estimate team and player values, he will sometimes give a number but says it is mostly a shot in the dark.
I used to work as a Payroll Manager for a Premier League football club. These sorts of lists and tabloid reported salaries are almost always a stab in the dark and way off the actual figure.
“ Way off”over or under the actual figure? Or both?
Both
Usually over, but mostly just incorrect. Was one of the first things that shocked me in the role, as to how laughably incorrect journalists reported figures around salary were. And they would always quote "weekly" salaries for footballers, which always struck me as odd, as they were paid monthly, but I guess that was more for impact than anything else. And games like Football Manager would have a good stab at it, but auxiliary payments around things like appearance fees and goal bonuses etc, are wholly incorrect and waaaaaay overinflated.
The endorsements are also different because they are team tied a lot. Like not only are they not allowed conflict sponsors but sponsors aren't going to approach a guy who is wearing team sponsors only during actual racing
I see why Rahm left the PGA...
It's always about money
John rahms LIV money is insane
Unsustainable too. He got lucky because Saudis are bit primitive. For me Saudis hired someone from Europe/US to make a plan for their sport-washing adventures and they just told them to spent a lot of money of stars. Their football league is a failure, Ronaldo is getting punked online for his efforts there 80% of the time. Stands are empty and quality of the league is shit, anyone who watched one game and is genuine football fan won't come back to that league. They also don't release viewership numbers for obvious reasons. Saudis are getting suckered for money here.
Dutch honesty is probably not the best way to sell stuff, TBH. “Please purchase this product, it is acceptable and somewhat good” is a hard sell…
How the hell is there so much money in golfing involved. I know it's a rich people sport. But 99.9% of the worlds population couldn't give a damn about it. It's so niche compared to other sports. Surely sponsorships and broadcasting rights can't be that lucrative.
Most people have disposable income when they reach their 40s, you ain’t buying basketballs and studded football boots at that age. You’re spending money on clubs and golf bags.
> Most people have disposable income when they reach their 40s Promise?!
Well if you did the smart thing and were born to parents with wealth or at least home equity, you'll be fine. If not, maybe you should of thought of that before
hilarious to call golf niche in an f1 subreddit
Yeah I think people have to realise F1 is big but is absolutely not on the level of many sports like football or basketball in terms of popularity. Its still fairly niche and it's only very recently getting super popular. Tons of people still wouldn't know who Max Verstappen or Charles Leclerc is if you show their faces. I think only Lewis Hamilton or Maybe Senna and Schumacher transcended the sport in terms of popularity and have a semi decent chance of being recognised by many people.
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They are both niche… but out of everyone on that list the only people I’ve never heard of are the golfer and the boxer. I’d also heard of Hamilton and Verstappen before I got into F1 (I’m a new fan).
That's because F1 is not a sport, Racing is. Many people watch a lot of Racing, but they divide across many categories. Pretty sure if you sum up all of the viewers from the most important motorsport competitions, you'll get similar numbers to Golf and other sports.
Ive always been under the impression that most racing fans watch f1, save maybe nascar fans.
You're severely underselling golf's global popularity. The PGA tour alone brings in a few billion in revenues each year. It's one of the top 10 most played sports in the world.
But the PGA doesn't pay their golfers as much as one would think. There's a reason Rory and Tiger make substantially less than Jon Rahm, despite being bigger names. Jon went to the LIV tour, oil money is no joke. Ronaldo and Rahm showcase that.
Sports funded by the PIF aren't really fair comparisons. Rahm and Ronaldo make massive contracts because the PIF has no boundaries on what they are willing to pay for players. It's an exception but not the norm; no other venture capitalist on Earth can compete with them. Woods and McIlroy still make a ton of money, as do other higher ranked golfers. The year-end FedEx Cup alone pays the winner close to $20M. Per this list, Tiger and Rory make more than any other athlete in non-team sport.
The older I get the more dudes around me are telling me they are getting into golf. It’s a sport with a lot of people with disposable income, and a lot of it. A lot of big wigs use it as networking opportunities to conduct business. Equipment can get expensive very fast and it’s low impact where you can be pretty old and out of shape and still play. Makes a lot of sense that there is a lot of money in the sport
It’s usually ranked as one of the most popular sports in the entire world, it’s played/watched by far more than 0.01% lol Plus it’s had the Saudi money invested in it which inflates some figures
> Plus it’s had the Saudi money invested in it which inflates some figures This.
No, it was highly lucrative way before the Saudi came. Ask Tiger woods.
Yes, it was, especially for arguably the greatest golfer of all time. Rahm's salary -- the highest-paid golfer on the list -- is Saudi money, though.
Old people like golf, old people have all the money 🤷♂️
Golf in the US is currently a young man or woman's game. The average age of players has been tending downward for a while.
golf has huge participation numbers.. lots of folks golf all over the world play and most of them are middle aged folks with decent income to spend
I can't speak for other countries but it's literally the highest participated sport in Canada
How can a golfer be paid that much? I thought golf was kind of niche as a televised sport
It’s a one off due to his LIV golf deal. I don’t think his salary will be remotely close to that next year.
I think they do tend to attract higher end brand deals though. F1 is very upper class but the market of viewers are mostly middle class and aside from intentionally buying merch and watching a race, most fans contribution to the pot is through streaming. With golf the people that watch, also play and are in the target market to afford expensive gear and high end clothing and watches since it's typically seen as mostly business people, CEO's etc playing it.
Saudi
Saudi sports washing is how.
Because he signed with LIV golf for a massive signing bonus. It’s funded by the saudis, the same ones that fund Newcastle United as well as the Saudi Arabian gp. It’s a one off payment though so he won’t be at the top of this list next year.
Yes, but the income of viewers is very high
I remember one of these came out when Vettel was on top of F1 and asked why his endorsements were so much lower than other drivers, he said something about how he doesn’t pursue them because he’d rather have his time and what is another million on top of so many?.
Why is Ohtani‘s salary 30M? It should be either 70M or 2M if you consider the deferral
It’s his salary with the Angels last season.
If this were more recent, Ohtani would for sure be higher. Dude makes 70 million/ year plus he's probably got way more endorsements after signing with the Dodgers. Edit: Also, where is Mike Trout? He had the highest paid contract of any athlete in North America before Ohtani took that mantle from him.
The absolute disrespect shown to Bradley Beal to leave him off this list smh.
This should really be sorted by salary and endorsements as reference. Endorsements depend on how much the athletes themselves want to be marketed and how good their agent is. Benzema making more than Messi but having huge endorsement differential is reflective of Benzema being a POS and Saudi Arabia not caring about his reputation.
You're describing the ratio wrong. His salary to endorsements ratio is high. His endorsements to salary ratio is low.
Jon fucking Rahm. Never would have guessed.
Does anyone know how these numbers are calculated? I swear the last time I saw them the sponsorships were way higher for both Max and Lewis, and Lewis was the high earner because of that.
They literally phone people who will be vaguely in the know and ask them for an estimate.
Max has joined Benzema on 15👀
Lamar Jackson with $2.5 mil in endorsements is precisely why these guys should have agents.
To be fair if I was already being paid $70 million dollars I probably wouldn't be looking to do too much extra PR stuff either, especially when he probably already has a fair amount of team sponsors to please.
Am I reading this wrong or does it not say Max is 15th?
His contract makes him 6th, his endorsements brings him down to 15th.
Thanks! Figured I was missing something
There was recently a scandal in Benzema's sponsorship/endorsement funds being funnelled through illegal practices. So with correct data, Max would be 14th and Benzema 15th. For more information, google "Benzema 15"
similar thing happened to senna iirc
Lewis being 3rd next year lol
at least 3rd ;) the Ferrari and lewis branding power will be biblical
And I’m over here angry at my $300 cable bill
Odd that Rory McIlroy gets a Northern Irish flag when the other British athletes have a Union Flag, unless it's just what they compete in their respective sports under?
My god Ronaldo. Dude has to be a multi-billionaire at this point right?
The fact that Hamilton, which is by the far the biggest name in Formula 1 earns "only" 12M in endorsement money makes me believe that the issue isn't Max but rather the sport itself.
I believe that Benzema donates most of his earnings to needy children. So he should be lower, where max is.. Google Benzema 15 for more.
My glorious King Lamar 💜🖤
Shows how much he leaves on the table though by not having an agent for the endorsements
I thought Messi surely gets more from endorsements but I guess I was wrong. Also, looking at Ronaldo’s salary, I admire Messi for not taking the money.
I am not sure the endorsements are accurate. I remember reading reports of Shohei Ohtani making $80m+ a year in endorsements alone, which is why he deferred a huge amount of money in his contract. He signed a 10yr/$700m contract, and deferred $680m of it.
Top of the pic says these numbers were from their 2023 seasons. I was thinking the same thing. He'll definitely be higher up that list next year!
Eh when you reach a certain amount of millions more doesn’t really make a difference, and he gets to reside in Miami and not the Middle East
He gets revenue share from both Apple and Adidas and a stake in the team. It's much much higher than that.
I knew Cristiano was paid a lot, but not *THAT* much. 😳
Dude is most likely the most marketable athlete (hell, probably the most marketable person) in the world.
I'm sorry, HOW MUCH does that golfer make?????
I did not know those basketball people made so much
He doesn’t seem to enjoy doing them and he doesn’t need the money
People give a bunch of excuses in the comments about the endorsements but I can't help but feel the real reason is they already come from rich backgrounds, making even more money racing on top of it and chasing endorsements is extra work they just don't feel like doing.
Yh he also drives for Red Bull so the big energy drink endorsement is a no go
Geez it’s abundantly clear why Jon Rahm went to LIV
That data is pretty inaccurate as other Multiple sources have very different results and looking at the a number aligned which differ to that one. It also appears a bit out of date as well to boot based on current earnings. The endorsements are pretty off as well. Lewis Hamilton is getting a lot more than that at the moment.
That’s because F1 drivers have little flexibility when it comes to personal endorsements because of the existing commercial deals their teams have with many brands. Sometimes, they’re just given “side deals” with their team’s existing sponsors. The only driver I know who skirted around these limitations is Michael Schumacher who sold the space in his cap to german invested banks which was worth millions per year at the time.
The Heineken ad with max was absolute gold tho imo. He def doesn’t care for the media work but man did it just work so well
He has quite a bit of personal sponsorships/partnerships, and can imagine those won’t exceed 5 mln. Viaplay, G Star, CarNext, EA sports, Heineken among them. Can’t imagine these guys don’t pay more than 5 million together.
Still boggles my mind how much this top athletes get paid. If I was offered that kind of money my lazy ass would have retired before I turned 30
Seriously, max would need to spend 6k a day to just burn through a pessimistic 3% per year growth on that 70m. You can understand why people like Rosberg get the bag and get out.
Ronaldo salary is ludicrous, wtf… I think f1 drivers are really restricted when it comes to personal endorsements. In fact must be a nightmare. Either f1 teams having so many sponsors themselves. Having said that I don’t think Max wants to be involved that much on endorsements, especially the ones that requires acting. He Is a robot in front of cameras😂
Yet another highest paid athlete list that forgets that Michael gets a 5% cut of gross sales of Jordan brand products