Oscar Piastri has been revealed as Aussie sport’s top earner after taking home a staggering $57million last year – but in a shock result, no AFL or NRL star managed to crack the top 50.
The comprehensive list of the nation’s best-paid athletes contains plenty of surprises, with relatively little-known names from golf and basketball outdoing superstars like Nick Daicos and Nathan Cleary.
Piastri – who came within a whisker of winning F1’s drivers’ championship last year – was joined in the top 10 by tennis star Alex de Minaur ($13million), NFL Super Bowl winner Jordan Mailata ($23million) and golf star Cameron Smith ($44million).
The top 50 list by Nine Newspapers has basketballer Taran Armstrong in 50th place with earnings of at least $2million thanks mainly to his contract with the Dubai team in the EuroLeague.
Next is Karl Vilips, who is one of several golfers to make the list despite the fact they’re not exactly household names Down Under.
He’s joined by Stephanie Kyriacou ($2.5million) and Grace Kim ($3million).
F1 star Oscar Piastri is Australia’s top-earning sport star after raking in $57million last year, a new list has revealed
Golfer Cam Smith (pictured) is second on $44million, thanks largely to his stunning deal with the breakaway LIV tour
Minjee Lee (pictured) is the top-earning Aussie sport star on $7.5million
Other under-the-radar athletes who are raking it in include basketballers Alex Condon ($3million) and Johnny Furphy ($3million), and jockey Zac Purton ($3million).
Matildas star Sam Kerr ranked 37th with a maximum earn of $3.5million, getting edged out by her teammate Mary Fowler, who is 36th.
Some of the country’s best-known cricketers are in the top 25 of the list, with Josh Hazlewood ($5million), Mitchell Starc and Travis Head ($5.5million) lagging behind Test skipper Pat Cummins, who is 15th on $9million.
Few Aussies outside of motocross fanatics would know much about Jett Lawrence, who is ninth after making at least $12million after winning his third straight SuperMotocross World Championship, making him the Max Verstappen of dirt biking.
NBA stars are well represented, with Josh Giddey of the Chicago Bulls in third place on $38million and Dyson Daniels of the Atlanta Hawks in fourth on $37million.
The presence of Major League Baseball stars like Liam Hendriks ($10.5million) and Travis Bazzana ($6.5million) will also come as a surprise to many Aussies.
While footy superstars like Daicos and Cleary get far more exposure than just about any of the other big names on the list, their absence isn’t all that surprising once you do a deeper dive into the money on offer in the AFL and NRL.
This season the AFL’s salary cap per team is $18.3million.
Mary Fowler makes the cut, coming in 36th – but her boyfriend Nathan Cleary misses out, with no NRL stars earning enough to snag a spot
Footy superstar Nick Daicos (pictured with partner Arlette Amor) also missed out, with no AFL stars represented
NRL teams are allowed to spend a maximum of $11.55million.
When you distribute that over the large squads the clubs have to carry, it doesn’t leave any room for megabucks salaries for even the best players.
St Kilda’s Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera is one of the AFL’s biggest earners on a deal rumoured to be worth close to $2million a year, while Christian Petracca is on an estimated $1.4million.
In the NRL, players like Dylan Brown, Tom Trbojevic and Nathan Cleary are on around $1.3million.
While they can all bump those numbers up with endorsement deals like Cleary’s contract with Adidas, the relatively shallow fan pool in Australia compared to big markets like Europe and the USA restricts their earning power, meaning Mary Fowler’s rumoured $10million deal with Adidas dwarfs her boyfriend’s.
Piastri’s huge salary from McLaren is also bumped up by his endorsement deals with Google, Monster Energy and the Grill’d fast-food chain.
