Forbes top earning athletes – Floyd Mayweather & - Pacquiao,

Forbes top earning athletes – Floyd Mayweather & - Pacquiao, not Tiger Woods, Sachin or Dhoni.

Manvinder Bisla, Mandeep Singh, Awana – have all not earned Indian cap – not sure when or whether they will ever play for the Nation – but they are household names after IPL 5.   The top 5 run aggregators in Ranji Trophy have been Wasim Jaffer, Amol Muzumbar, Amarjit Kaypee, Pankaj Dharmani and Hrishikesh Kanitkar – played a total of 33 tests – of which Jaffer played 31 and Kanitkar 2 – the rest never played for India in Tests.

In Summer, one sees mushrooming Cricket Academies and Coaching camps – you get to hear Coaches speaking to wards, more to the parents on the importance of aspirations, concentration, will power, the mind to perform and technique – not all of the coaches have played at higher levels and only a handful of them had performed at Ranji level at least. The parental pressure is so much – mothers dream of their kid becoming a Sachin Tendulkar in a few hours time, not mentally accepting the fact that Tendulkars come once in a generation, in a Nation of  more than 100 crores of people !

Cricket attracts every one – even those who are not glued to TVs when matches are played and who do not follow the game that other International teams play – come IPL every year – you get to hear some unknown player suddenly emerging and that sends the mothers soaring newer heights that their son too oneday would perhaps represent one of these clubs and …………… earn more…..

What is most sought after in life – is it the glory and fame or is it the money. For all the attraction and respect it garners, Cricket is a game played by a handful of Nations.  Sachin and Dhoni are the stars who have earned most – not only from the game, more so from endorsements. Do you think that the game has to be immensely popular to ensure that the sportsperson earn more ? --- - Myths !!!!!!

Eldrick Tont better known as Tiger Woods is a professional golfer whose achievements on the field have no parallel. He has been the highest paid professional athlete in the World for unprecedented 11 years. Not any longer, he has been deposed by Floyd Mayweather – weather, Who ?

Floyd Joy Mayweather, Jr., is an American professional boxer remaining undefeated on the ring but jailed for domestic violence.  He currently is the  WBC Welterweight Champion, WBA (Super) Light Middleweight Champion and recipient of the WBC Diamond belt. Not for nothing, people call him  ‘Money’ – when all athletes are busy playing various tournaments, he fought twice during the past 12 months, spent less than one hour in the ring to dispatch his two foes – his combined payday for the bouts: 85 million dollars.” 

Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquaio have overtaken Tiger Woods as sport’s highest earner after the golfer made that position his own for 11 years.  The golfer is now pushed to third in the Forbes list of the world’s 100 highest-paid athletes list.  The top 10 are :

Floyd Mayweather –  Pro Boxer - total earnings $85m

Manny Pacquaio – Pro Boxer - $62m

Tiger Woods – Golfer - $59.4m

LeBron James – Basket ball – Miami Heat $53m

Roger Federer – Tennis Star -  $52.7m

Kobe Bryant –  Basketball player - $52.3m

Phil Mickelson –  Golfer - $47.8m

David Beckham – Football -  $46m

Cristiano Ronaldo –  Football - $42.5m

Peyton Manning – American football -  $42.4m

David Beckham may not be the best above Ronaldo and Lionel Messi but his earnings are.  Only two women, both tennis players, cracked the list — Russian star Maria Sharapova, with  $27.9 million, thanks in great measure to huge global endorsement totals as well as $5.9 million in prize money over the past year, is 26th in the list and China’s Li Na, the 2011 French Open Champion  at $18.4 million, with seven new endorsement deals after becoming the first Asian-born player to win a Grand Slam singles crown. The man at the helm of Indian Cricket team, Mr Cool  Mahendra Singh Dhoni is ranked No. 31 while the legendary  Sachin Tendulkar comes much lower at  No. 78.  Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, the reigning 100- and 200-meter Olympic champion and world record-holder who figures to be a top attraction at the London Olympics, was 63rd with $20.3 million.

The no. 2 - Pacquiao, at the centre of a boxing furore after controversially losing his WBO welterweight title to Timothy Bradley, trails in £14.6m behind Mayweather.  Emmanuel "Manny" Dapidran Pacquiao, is a Filipino professional boxer and politician. He was long rated as the best pound for pound boxer in the world by some sporting news and boxing websites.

The mayhem of Mayweather who maximizes  his earnings by also acting as his own fight promoter through his company Mayweather Promotions has another gloomy side.  The man at the top now, would not be able to spend  his millions at the moment as he is serving a three-month jail sentence in Las Vegas for domestic battery.  The no.2 is a politician and the 3rd in the list Tiger Woods was so much in the news with messy details of his personal life surfacing in the middle. That these are the top most earning athletes speaks volumes of the way the World overlooks ethical aspects.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.