November 22, 2024

Conor McGregor comes in at No. 4 on Forbes’ 2018 list of highest paid athletes

Bloodyelbow.com

Conor McGregor earned big during the past 12 months.

After his boxing extravaganza with Floyd Mayweather Jr., which saw the Irishman TKO’d in the 10th round after putting up a good fight at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena, McGregor earned a whopping $99 million. That’s $85 million in salaries and $14 million in sponsorships.

This is according to Forbes, who ranked McGregor as one of the top-five highest paid athletes in the world on their 2018 list, surpassing the likes of LeBron James and Roger Federer. McGregor’s opponent, Mayweather topped the list with a staggering earning of $285 million in that period.

“McGregor banked an estimated $85 million for the fight, more than five times his previous top paycheck,” Forbes states in its report. “The fight had 4.3 million PPV buys and generated more than $550 million in revenue. The Irishman signed a slew of deals over the past 12 months with the buzz around the Mayweather fight. His current partners are Burger King, Beats by Dre, Monster Energy, David August, BSN, Anheuser-Busch, HiSmile, and Betsafe. He also has a residency deal with the Wynn Las Vegas for all of his afterparties, and his digital properties, Conor McGregor FAST Program, MacMoji App, MacTalk App and the Mac Life, also generate cash.”

‘The Notorious’ surpassed his ranking from last year, where he came in at No. 24 with an estimated earning of $34 million after a blockbuster with Nate Diaz and a championship win overEddie Alvarez at UFC 205.

McGregor is the only MMA fighter on the list, with boxers Canelo Alvarez ($44.5M), Anthony Joshua ($39M) and Gennady Golovkin ($25M) also coming in at number 15, 25 and 72 respectively.

The SBG Ireland standout also posted the news on his Instagram, where he said he would have been ranked even higher had he accepted a fight for the interim welterweight title — possibly against Rafael dos Anjos — at UFC 224 in Rio de Janeiro. That bout didn’t come to fruition due to McGregor’s involvement in a chaotic bus attack in the days leading up to UFC 223 at the Barclays Center in New York.

McGregor hasn’t fought in the Octagon since his win over Alvarez from 2016, but the fan favorite is expected to return against newly-crowned champion Khabib Nurmagomedov later in the year.

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