Salaries Of Pro Athletes

Fortunate 50 Features Bradford and Durant

OKLAHOMA CITY – This year's Sports Illustrated Fortunate 50 list features two professional athletes familiar to Oklahoman's: Sam Bradford and Kevin Durant.

The Fortunate 50 list, which names the highest earning American athletes in professional sports boasts Bradford at No. 12 while KD follows at No. 31.

Bradford collected a smooth $27,250,000 million last year with all but $450,000 coming from his big paycheck from the Rams after being selected as the No. 1 overall draft pick in the 2010 NFL draft.

St. Louis signed Bradford to the largest rookie deal in NFL history, with the bulk of money being paid out over 2011: an $18 million option bonus and an $8.4 million roster bonus.

For KD, the Thunder star brought in a total of $20,053,663 million last season with just over six million dollars coming from salary/winnings and the remaining $14 million coming from endorsements.

All in all, the 2011 list features 19 NBA players, 17 baseball players, eight NFL players, three NASCAR drivers and three golfers.

As far as NFL players on the list, Bradford falls behind Peyton Manning, Matt Ryan and Tom Brady while the top ranked NBA player was LeBron James who ranked third on the list after bringing in a staggering $44.5 million last year.

Despite the downturn in his professional and personal careers, Tiger Woods remains as the highest earning American Athlete for the eighth straight year.

Woods' $2.2 million salary/winnings are nothing compared to the $60 millions he gets from endorsements, especially when that is considered being a "down" year.

SI's findings consisted solely of salary, winnings, bonuses, endorsements and appearance fees and it consulted players' associations, tour records, agents and news reports for the fissures. The magazine's endorsement estimates for 2011 came from Burns Entertainment & Sports Marketing, other sports-marketing executives and analysts, and agents.

See the entire list of SI.com's Fortunate 50 here.

Are high athlete salaries ruining professional sports?

In 2011, Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick is scheduled to make anywhere between $16 and $20 million on a one-year contract in the National Football League, meaning he is in line to receive a little over $1 million for each regular season game he plays this season (assuming the league lockout comes to an end). Years ago, a salary like Vick’s would have been considered outrageously high, but in today’s world of professional sports, hefty, big-money deals are common. The growing frequency of large sports salaries has not exactly garnered the approval of the public, however, and many believe athletes are being overpaid, receiving ridiculous amounts of money to entertain. In spite of the criticism, high salaries are clearly not ruining the games in which the wealthy players participate.

Sherman Howard, a former running back for the Bears, recently told the Chicago Tribune newspaper that the current generation of NFL players “think finances is the main thing” and care about little else. And while there are ongoing negotiations to refine the league’s restrictions on rookie contracts as a result of first-year players signing for loads of guaranteed money before ever setting foot on a field, professional sports as a whole have not been damaged by the increase in revenue for athletes. In fact, it would be quite an understatement to suggest the NFL, among other pro sports organizations, have been ruined by high player salaries. A 2009 poll among sports fans indicated a 10-percent increase of followers for both football and baseball over the last few decades, while teams rake in hundreds of millions of dollars per year, largely because of the income generated from fan-purchased items such as game tickets and merchandise–most of which is bought to watch or show support for certain players.