Floyd Mayweather Jr. Ranks No. 1 on 10th Annual Sports Illustrated Fortunate 50 List of Highest Earning Athletes in the U.S.
Posted: May 15, 2013 Filed under: Baseball, Golf, NBA, NFL, PGA, Tennis, Weekly Issue Leave a comment »
Galvanized by an unprecedented deal with Showtime that guarantees him at least $32 million per fight, boxing great Floyd (Money) Mayweather Jr. sits atop the 10th annual Sports Illustrated Fortunate 50, which ranks the 50 highest-earning professional athletes in the U.S. With $90 million in projected earnings for 2013, Mayweather tops the list for the second consecutive year. The complete list is available at si.com/Fortunate50 and is also featured in the May 20, 2013 edition of SI.
Tiger Woods, who was No. 1 on the Fortunate 50 every year from 2004-11, falls to his lowest ranking ever (No. 5, $40.8MM). LeBron James (No. 2, $56.5MM) is the first team-sport player to crack the top two since Shaquille O’Neal did it in 2004. James’s $39 million in endorsements were more than any other U.S. athlete in 2013. A historic $37 million signing bonus helped Drew Brees skyrocket to No. 3 on this year’s list. Brees didn’t crack the top 50 in 2012.
The SI Fortunate 50 Top Ten:
|
|
Name |
Sport |
Total |
Salary/Winnings |
Endorsements |
2012 Ranking |
|
1 |
Floyd Mayweather Jr. | Boxing |
$90,000,000 |
$90,000,000 |
$0 |
1 |
|
2 |
LeBron James | NBA |
$56,545,000 |
$17,545,000 |
$39,000,000 |
5 |
|
3 |
Drew Brees | NFL |
$47,800,000 |
$40,000,000 |
$7,800,000 |
NR |
|
4 |
Kobe Bryant | NBA |
$46,850,000 |
$27,850,000 |
$19,000,000 |
4 |
|
5 |
Tiger Woods | Golf |
$40,839,027 |
$7,839,027 |
$33,000,000 |
3 |
|
6 |
Phil Mickelson | Golf |
$39,528,630 |
$3,528,630 |
$36,000,000 |
2 |
|
7 |
Derrick Rose | NBA |
$33,403,000 |
$16,403,000 |
$17,000,000 |
19 |
|
8 |
Peyton Manning | NFL |
$31,000,000 |
$18,000,000 |
$13,000,000 |
7 |
|
9 |
Alex Rodriguez | MLB |
$29,900,000 |
$29,000,000 |
$900,000 |
6 |
|
10 |
Zack Greinke | MLB |
$29,020,000 |
$29,000,000 |
$20,000 |
NR |
The 2013 Fortunate 50 was compiled by Sports Illustrated special contributor Daniel Roberts, a writer-reporter for Fortune Magazine. The list consists solely of salary, winnings, bonuses and endorsements. Roberts consulted with players’ associations, tour records, online databases, agents and reports. Endorsement estimates came from a stable of marketing executives, agents, and other experts, including Burns Entertainment & Sports Marketing.
For team sports, salaries are based on current or most recent seasons. NFL rankings are based on the season that ended in February. (Joe Flacco’s new deal, where he is set to earn $20.1 million next season, isn’t reflected.) The 2012 calendar year was used for auto racing and tennis. Golf earnings are from July 1, 2012 through April 21, 2013 (the RBC Heritage). Boxing purses are from August 2012 through May 2013, but include projected money from fights through September. Candidates for the Fortunate 50 must be U.S. citizens or play in a U.S.-based league.
Mayweather sat down with executive editor Jon Wertheim for a Q&A, featured in this week’s SI, before his victory over Robert Guerrero on May 4. He says, “Surround yourself with the right team. It takes brains to make the money.” When asked how his time in prison affected his view about money, Mayweather adds: “I got offers and huge deals when I was locked up, with CEOs writing me, wanting to do business with me, Fortune 500 companies wanting to do business with me. But my main focus was just coming home and being free. You can have all the money in the world, but if you’re not free, it’s like being poor, because you can’t do anything.”
The 2013 list features 25 baseball players, 13 basketball players, eight football players, two golfers, one boxer and one NASCAR driver. No female athletes were ranked in the U.S. list for the fifth consecutive year. There are 17 athletes on the 2013 list that were not there in 2012, including Johan Santana
(No. 13, $26.3MM), Dirk Nowitzki (No. 35, $21.3MM) and Miguel Cabrera (No. 36, $21.2MM), who joined the list due to a tweak in the rules that puts anyone on an American sports team on the Fortunate 50, whether or not they’re a U.S. citizen. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 49), Derek Jeter (No. 19) and Larry Fitzgerald (unranked) dropped out of the top 10 from last year.
The New York Yankees topped team sports with five representatives on the list. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies came next with four players each, followed by the Detroit Tigers, San Francisco Giants, Miami Heat and LA Lakers with three. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were the only NFL team to have more than one player on the list (Vincent Jackson, No. 15 and Carl Nicks, No. 21).
Soccer star David Beckham ($48.3MM) tops the SI International 20, which ranks the 20 highest-earning international athletes. Beckham unseats tennis champ Roger Federer (No. 2, $43.4MM), who ranked No. 1 the previous three years. Tennis star Maria Sharapova (No.9, $25.5MM) is the top-ranked female to crack either list. Fellow tennis player Li Na (No. 17, $17.3MM) is the only other ranked female.
The package continues online at SI.com/Fortunate50 with additional features on Drew Brees’s contract, NASCAR’s biggest earners, MLB players and their business ventures and the sea of change in endorsement contracts. BlackRock is the SI Fortunate 50 sponsor on SI.com.
Mets Ace Matt Harvey on the Cover of This Week’s Sports Illustrated
Posted: May 14, 2013 Filed under: Baseball, Sports Illustrated Cover, Tom Verducci, Weekly Issue, Weekly Press Release | Tags: Matt Harvey, MLB, New York Mets, tom verducci Leave a comment »
New York Mets ace Matt Harvey is the most fascinating young power arm in baseball, writes senior writer Tom Verducci in this week’s Sports Illustrated. Harvey, who appears on SI’s cover with the headline “The Dark Knight of Gotham”, has taken New York by storm thanks to four plus pitches and a chip on his shoulder from a draft slight six years ago. “In an era dominated by pitchers, Matt Harvey has the ferocity of stuff and of will to rise above all of them,” says Verducci. (PAGE 64)
Harvey’s blazing start—he is 4-0 with 62 strikeouts and a 1.44 ERA—brings up memories of Tom Seaver and Dwight Gooden, homegrown power pitchers who helped the Mets to their only world championships. “I want to be that guy,” says Harvey, “when they know you’re starting against them, they go, ‘Oh, crap.’ ” (PAGE 66)
Verducci notes that Harvey was groomed to become a great power pitcher with disciplined mechanics by his father, Ed, who coached Matt in high school in Connecticut. Ed always told his son that if he maintains his mechanics, nobody’s better. “He saw me coach for a long time,” Ed says. I always tried to have a level of excellence with how I wanted my teams to play. Maybe he saw some of that.” (PAGE 66)
Harvey declined a $1 million offer to sign out of high school when he was picked later than expected by the Angels in the third round of the 2007 draft. He enrolled at North Carolina, where he initially struggled. He later reestablished his status as a top prospect, and the Mets chose him with the seventh overall pick of the 2010 draft. “What happened when I was 18 will be in the back of my mind,” Harvey says of the ’07 draft. “That was the biggest thing in my career.” (PAGE 68)
Now, Harvey’s signature pitch is a 97-mph fastball. Verducci notes that the rest of his repertoire includes “a roundhouse 1-to-7 curveball, a changeup that seems to float into the ether and, most recently, a tight, hard slider that reaches 92 (PAGE 65).” Verducci thinks Harvey’s best comparison may be with Roger Clemens. “His arm goes stock straight behind him as he shows the ball to second base while sitting on a bent back leg—just as the Rocket did.” (PAGE 65)
Like Clemens, Harvey wants to own the game. When pitching coach Dan Warthen told him that he could win 17 games if he threw 210 innings, Harvey said, “If I throw 210 I’m winning 20.” (PAGE 70)
Memphis Grizzlies guard Mike Conley Jr. on Regional Cover of This Week’s SI
Posted: May 14, 2013 Filed under: Lee Jenkins, NBA, Sports Illustrated Cover, Weekly Issue, Weekly Press Release | Tags: Lee Jenkins, Memphis Grizzlies, Mike Conley Jr, NBA Leave a comment »
This week’s SI also features an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Mike Conley Jr. and the Memphis Grizzlies. Senior writer Lee Jenkins spent seven days with the Western Conference contenders as they devised a game plan for the Thunder, bounced back from a devastating defeat—and got their hair cut just right. Conley is featured on a regional cover, the first SI cover for the Memphis Grizzlies.
Jenkins takes readers through the Grizzlies’ preparations for Game 1, including reserve swingman Quincy Pondexter doing push-ups and power forward Zack Randolph reviewing Floyd Mayweather’s victory the night before. Jenkins writes, “The Grizzlies are heavyweights, not welterweights, an antidote to the go-go teams of the Western Conference and a throwback to the days when large men stood on the block with their backs to the basket.” (PAGE 36)
In Game 1, the Grizzlies, the league’s top defensive team, forgot who they were. Memphis allowed Kevin Durant to score 35 points and Kevin Martin to score 25 off the bench. They still had a chance to tie the game with 1.6 seconds left when Pondexter went to the line to shoot three with his team down three. He missed the first shot and Memphis lost. In the locker room after the defeat, Pondexter already had a Twitter account filled with awful messages. He said, “I let down my team.”(PAGE 37)
After every game, coach Lionel Hollins fills a note card with his thoughts for the following practice. Jenkins saw the card—it was filled with ways to slow Durant. “We have to treat KD the same ways as Russell Westbrook or Chris Paul,” Hollins said. “He can’t just dribble down the floor and see one guy. He has to see three guys.” (PAGE 37)
Jenkins also observed a team that is very close knit, from eating meals and seeing movies together on the road to Conley hosting a Warriors-Spurs watch party in his hotel room. “I’m in awe of what he’s doing,” Conley says as he watches the Warriors’ Stephen Curry. In the Grizzlies’ Game 2 victory, Conley finished with 26 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists. Jenkins says that he delivered “a sequence as awe-inducing as Curry’s.” (PAGE 39)
The coaching staff has encouraged Conley to look for his own shot more often since leading scorer Rudy Gay was traded in late January. “I got a chance to show the world I can do the same things as those other great point guards,” Conley says. (PAGE 38)
With the Grizzlies back home with three days off before Game 3, forward Tony Allen took his daughter to school, Pondexter made his 38th community appearance of the season and Randolph got his weekly haircut at Christyles, where he stops in every Friday or Saturday and always before nationally televised games. Jenkins says, “On the road the Grizzlies are basketball players. At home they are husbands, fathers and dog owners.” (PAGE 40)
Sports Illustrated Director of Photography Brad Smith Discusses this Week’s Leading Off
Posted: May 9, 2013 Filed under: Brad Smith, Photography, Sports Illustrated Photography, UFC, Weekly Issue Comments Off
Brad Smith joined SPORTS ILLUSTRATED as the new Director of Photography in March after spending the past 12 years as the Senior Sports Photo Editor for The New York Times. Previously Smith served two stints at SI, first as associate photo editor of the magazine and then separately as the Director of Photography for SI for Kids and for SI for Women. In between, from 1993 through 1994, Smith worked as the Photo Editor for the White House under President Bill Clinton.
Smith has already made his mark felt at SI with great photography on numerous groundbreaking covers, inside the magazine and on SI.com. This week, the Leading Off section of the magazine, which is devoted to photography from the top moments in sports each week, featured a new approach with a six page photo essay on a single topic by photographer Eric Thayer entitled:“How to Lose 17 Pounds in a Week: the [Brutal] UFC Diet.” Thayer shadowed UFC fighter Gian Villante for 48 hours as he went through the process of making weight—and then regaining it—for UFC 159.
Smith sat down with Inside SI to discuss photography, this week’s Leading Off and his vision for similar features in the future.
How do photos tell a story?
Smith: If a photo works the way it’s supposed to work, you can look at it and you can tell what happened at any particular event. It’s supposed to inform you and resonate some type of emotion inside you. Those are the two main things that any type of photo should do for someone looking at one.
How would you define the Leading Off section in Sports Illustrated?
Smith: Leading Off provides serious prime real estate for compelling sports photography. We have a magazine with a tremendous following that is accustomed to viewing up to six pages of the best sports photos each week. Sometimes Leading Off is thematic and devoted to a particular sport or event and sometimes it’s a collection from the best sport’s game from that given week.
Why an expanded Leading Off on one topic for this issue?
Smith: I strongly believe photo journalism that tells stories with a minimal amount of caption block is extremely impactful. Our readers already come to SI for the best reporting, writing and columns in sports journalism. Why not tell similar stories through the power of a camera?
What does this week’s Leading Off convey?
Smith: The package takes you through the emotional rollercoaster Villante experienced and does so as powerfully as words can. It’s very clear by looking at these photographs that the photographer (Eric Thayer) spent some serious time (48 hours to be exact) with UFC fighter Gian Villante. You can see the story being told–there’s emotion, there’s information since there’s a sense of place. There’s also a sense of gut feeling as this athlete tries to lose weight. You can see it in his face—he’s in anguish as he gets to the last few pounds. Then you can see the relief as he starts to eat again. The spread on the last page shows you how cut and chiseled the fighter is at the weigh-in. He basically has no body fat. In the next series of photos, you can see he’s gained it all back in the course of a few hours by eating all of these heavy protein foods. The final picture is so telling—he’s lost his match.
Do you think the subject can act natural knowing a camera is there with him? What is the key to making access like this work?
Smith: The best photographers ingratiate themselves with their subjects and Eric did this with Villante. Eric is a true journalist and uses his camera to tell honest, real stories. He made Villante, who like most people is not used to this type of attention, comfortable by spending nearly every minute of a two-day period with him and did so without coming off as intrusive. I know anyone who looks at these photos feels the emotions that Villante experienced in his quest to get ready for a fight. It was a really honest interpretation of his journey..
What is your vision for the future of Leading Off?
Smith: I see Leading Off being used more often as a place to tell stories on one subject over a multiple page spread like we did this week. The format we have used for years with one shot photographs has been very well received over the years and we will continue to use this format often going forward as well. However, photo essay stories are really compelling and I think it will complement the storytelling we are used to from SI. We want to continue to push ourselves to be the home for the best sports photography out there. Of course, this can only be done with the encouragement and cooperation from SI managing editor Chris Stone. I thank him for the opportunity to explore this type of story this week and look forward to finding ways to do more of it in the future.
* Photo credits: Eric Thayer for Sports Illustrated
Drinking And Driving And Dying
Posted: May 8, 2013 Filed under: NFL, Thomas Lake, Weekly Issue | Tags: dallas cowboys, Jerry Brown, Josh Brent, nfl, Thomas Lake Comments Off
Professional athletes do not cause more DUI fatalities than other Americans—they just make more headlines. But with so many resources in place for athletes to avoid driving drunk and numerous high-profile tragedies in recent years, senior writer Thomas Lake wonders in this week’s SPORTS ILLUSTRATED why athletes today simply don’t know better?
Lake takes readers through a timeline of the most high profile drinking and driving related accidents involving professional athletes, including many that included fatalities like last year’s DUI related accident involving Josh Brent of the Dallas Cowboys that killed his teammate and friend Jerry Brown.
Lake reports that years before the tragic accident, while playing at Illinois, Brown and Brent both ran into trouble by driving without valid licenses and even worse—Brent was arrested for DUI in February 2009. He was kicked off the Illinois team and spent two months in prison. After his release, Brent attended a court-ordered victim-impact panel where he learned about horrific accidents related to drunk driving.
Lake then chronicles the night that never should have been. After a night of partying on December 8, 2012, just five miles from the apartment that Brent and Brown shared, Lake writes: “Brent had a choice to make…He can call a confidential safe-ride service administered by the NFL Players Association. He can call one of two limousine services affiliated with the Cowboys. He can call a member of the Cowboys’ staff whose job it is to be available all day and all night to help the players however he can. Josh Brent does none of those things (PAGE 61).” Brown had similar choices to make other than getting in as a passenger. The result: A terrible car accident that left Brown dead (Brent survived with minimal injuries). According to a police report, Brent’s blood-alcohol level was measured at 0.189, more than twice the legal threshold of intoxication.
Lake notes the 2012 USA Today analysis that found NFL players are arrested on drunken-driving charges less often per capita than members of the general population. Yet, he says “What distinguishes the sports figures is their financial ability to hire drivers. And now, with Safe Ride solutions, they have fewer excuses to drive drunk than they ever had before.” (PAGE 59)
