Move over Ronaldo, Messi — Jon Rahm is the highest paid athlete in 2023 after joining LIV Golf
LOS ANGELES — The obscene sums doled out by the Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in its quest to lure the world’s top golfers to its LIV Golf tour reached a pinnacle when Jon Rahm joined the league this week.
Estimates on what Rahm was paid to jump from the PGA Tour range from $400 million to $600 million, with the Telegraph reporting the most precise number at $566 million, with $302 million paid upfront. Anything within that range would lift the defending Masters champion into a stratosphere of athletes attaining more than $500 million in career earnings, and he would be the youngest at age 29.
Should Rahm be paid anything close to $302 million upon signing in 2023, he would be the highest paid athlete in the world for the cal
endar year. By far.
Soccer players Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Kylian MBappé head the list compiled by Forbes with combined earnings on and off the field of $136 million, $130 million and $120 million, respectively. The list goes 50 deep and the NBA has the most players of any sport with 15.
Golfers, however, had the biggest increase from 2002, going from three to 12, largely as a result of LIV Golf’s upfront guarantees. The highest paid golfers besides Rahm this year are the faces of LIV: Dustin Johnson ($107 million) and Phil Mickelson ($106 million).
No wonder Rahm did an about-face from his oft-repeated public stance the last two years of extolling the virtues of the PGA Tour and ignoring overtures by LIV.
Yes, he’d expressed frustration in June when it was announced that the PGA Tour and PIF were going to combine, thereby apparently eliminating his opportunity to cash in on a PIF lump sum to switch sides. But he consistently aligned himself with fervent PGA Tour backers such as Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.
It’s safe to assume the ante was raised by PIF to a point that Rahm couldn’t resist. Why now? The deadline for the merger to finalize is Dec. 31, and PIF might have gained the upper hand in eleventh-hour negotiations by signing away Rahm. As it stood, the PGA Tour enjoyed leverage by openly courting investors besides PIF and owning TV deals and relationships with sponsors.
Even McIlroy declined to frown on Rahm’s decision, telling Sky Sports News, “Is it disappointing to me? Yes, but the landscape of golf changed on June 6 when the framework agreement was announced and I think because of that it made the jump from the PGA Tour to LIV a little easier for guys.”