Football star Lionel Messi has become a billionaire and joined the $1 billion (₹9,600 crore) club along with football legend Cristiano Ronaldo, says a report by the US-based media company, Bloomberg. According to that report, Messi has an estimated net worth of $1 billion. With this, he has become one of the richest player ever to play a sport.
Messi’s total earnings:
Instagram/@leomessi
Over his long career of more than twenty years, Messi has earned more than $1.6 billion (₹15,360 crore) in total. This includes around $1.2 billion (₹11,520 crore) from his club salaries and about $400 million (₹3,840 crore) from business sponsorships.
How much money does Messi earn right now?
Lionel Messi currently plays his club soccer for Inter Miami CF. This team belongs to Major League Soccer (MLS), which is the top professional soccer league in the United States (US) and Canada. Before moving to America in July 2023, Messi spent most of his life playing in Europe. He played for Barcelona in La Liga (the Spanish league) and for Paris Saint-Germain in Ligue 1 (the French league). He also plays for the Argentina national team, which he led to win the World Cup in late 2022.
What is Messi’s salary?
Messi earns only 15% of his total annual income from football; rest 85% comes from ads, businesses & social media posts. According to Forbes, Lionel Messi sits at number three on the 2026 list of the World’s Highest-Paid Athletes. Forbes reports that Messi makes $140 million (₹1,344 crore) per year in total.
This money comes from following two different sources:
On-field salary: According to official league numbers shared by ‘Celebrity Net Worth,’ Messi’s base salary at Inter Miami is $12 million (₹115.2 crore) a year. However, when you add guaranteed bonuses, his total compensation from the team is around $20.5 million (₹196.8 crore) per year. This makes him the highest-paid player in the history of Major League Soccer.
Off-field earnings: The remaining part of his $140 million annual income comes from giant companies. Messi has a lifetime deal with Adidas. He also makes roughly $70 million (₹672 crore) every year by promoting brands like PepsiCo, Mastercard, Budweiser, Gatorade, and his own hydration drink called Mas+.
Who Is the Richest Sportsman on the Planet?
If Lionel Messi has $1 billion, who is the richest active soccer player? That title goes to his long-time rival, Cristiano Ronaldo.
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Cristiano Ronaldo officially became a billionaire in June 2025. Currently, Ronaldo has an incredible net worth of $1.2 billion (₹11,520 crore).
Instagram/@cristiano
Ronaldo achieved this billionaire status by moving to Saudi Arabia to play for a team named Al Nassr in the Saudi Pro League. In 2025, at the age of 40, Ronaldo signed a historic contract extension with Al Nassr. According to Celebrity Net Worth, this contract pays him a base salary of $224 million (₹2,150 crore) per year. When you add his personal sponsorships, like his $1 billion lifetime deal with Nike and his huge income from social media, Ronaldo earns a mind-blowing $338 million (₹3,244 crore) per year.
Because of this, Forbes ranks Cristiano Ronaldo as the number one highest-paid athlete in the entire world.
Who got the fattest cheque ever in sports history?
When we look at the biggest single contract ever signed in a sports league, Cristiano Ronaldo takes the crown again.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s deal with Al Nassr is the biggest in history. His contract for the years 2025 to 2027 is worth a total of $710 million (₹6,816 crore) for just two years of work. That means he receives a massive average of over $355 million (₹3,408 crore) per year when total team incentives are added up. No other athlete in history has ever received a single cheque or contract that big from a sports team.
For comparison, the largest contract in American baseball history belongs to Juan Soto, who signed a 15-year deal with the New York Mets worth $765 million (₹7,344 crore). While Soto’s total number is higher, he has to work for 15 years to get it. Ronaldo gets almost the same amount of money in just two years!
Credit: Instagram/@juansoto_25
Which sports league generates the highest revenue?
The National Football League (NFL) is the highest-revenue sports league on earth. The NFL is the professional American football league.
In the 2025 season, the NFL generated an astonishing €19.88 billion (which is over $21 billion or ₹2 lakh crore) in revenue. The league has only 32 teams, but each team makes an average of €621.2 million per year.
To see how dominant the NFL is, look at the top five richest leagues in the world by revenue:
Even though soccer is the most popular sport across the planet, the English Premier League makes less than half of what the NFL makes. The wealth of American TV networks and the spending power of North American fans keep the NFL, MLB, and NBA at the top of the money pyramid.
Sports are no longer just games that people play for fun. Today, the sports industry, especially the leagues, has become a money-making machine. Every year, billions of dollars are generated through ticketsales, TV and uniform deals and advertisements.
According to data from a 2026 report by ‘Research and Markets,’ the global sports market size is huge. It has grown from $495.38 billion (₹47.55 lakh crore) in 2025 to $521.74 billion or over ₹50 lakh crore in 2026. This means the world’s sports industry is currently worth more than half a trillion dollars. More people are watching sports digitally, more leagues are on expansion mode, and companies spend huge amounts of money to put their names on stadium boundaries and player jerseys.
The sports world in 2026 is full of staggering numbers. The entire industry is heading towards $650 billion or ₹62.40 lakh crore by the end of the decade. While the NFL rules as the richest league overall, individual soccer icons still command the ultimate power. Lionel Messi continues to dominate American soccer with a $1 billion or ₹9,600 crore net worth and a $140 million or ₹1,344 crore annual income. Meanwhile, his rival Cristiano Ronaldo sits alone at the top of the world as a certified billionaire with $1.2 billion or ₹11,520 crore in the bank.
