Are professional athletes paid too much?

According to the Forbes list, Cristiano Ronaldo made 260 million dollars in the last financial year. A sports betting site had a more interesting calculation. Turns out boxer Anthony Joshua made twelve and a half million dollars per minute in the same period. Not surprisingly, every so often we get someone asking: do athletes earn too much?

I am not sure there is such a thing as “earning too much.” The market believes Ronaldo is worth 260 million dollars, so that’s what he is paid. The actor Robert Downey Jr. once said, “Acting is the most wildly overpaid profession imaginable.” Roger Moore has been quoted as saying, “I enjoy being a highly overpaid actor.” This is not so much an admission as a provocation. A David Hockney painting sold a few years ago for 90 million dollars. And why not?

You could stretch the “too much pay” argument to include rock stars, CEOs, royalty, celebrity writers — there’s always someone who thinks they are paid too much, much more than doctors, soldiers and teachers who are seen as being in nobler professions. But that is a silly argument. True, the second lot is grossly underpaid, but that doesn’t mean those who kick a football or try to knock a small, dimpled ball into a hole far away ought not to be paid for their work. In any case, the figures are about the top athletes —there are tennis players and golfers on the circuit who barely make ends meet.

Jon Rahm (second on the Forbes list with 218 million dollars), who won the LIV golf league recently, earned about 35 million for that effort and a diamond, emerald and gold ring worth 14 million. The ring has a concealed ball marker with a QR code on the back, which will allow him to watch back the winning moment. You can rub it, and a cave door opens, revealing untold riches. That last is an exaggeration, of course, but soon it might be difficult to tell.

In the future, as I write this, but in the past as you get to read it, Joshua will add a possible 30 million dollars to his kitty following the IBF title fight against Daniel Dubois. His earnings per minute are set to skyrocket.

Tyson Fury is believed to have earned 65 million dollars from a similar bout last year, part of the ‘Riyadh Season’, a festival of sports, culture and entertainment. The millions in golf and boxing above are a result of Saudi Arabia’s investment in sport.

Those who have been screaming ‘sportswashing’ are quieter now, for the Joshua fight is not in Saudi Arabia but in Wembley.

Last year, Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, told Fox News, “If sportswashing increases my GDP by one per cent, then I will continue doing sportswashing.”

There is a point beyond which concrete amounts begin to look and sound abstract. Like a painting if you stare at it for too long. Are salaries in sports getting there?