Nemanja Curcic
For football fans across the world, Cristiano Ronaldo needs no introduction. One of the all-time greatest players, Ronaldo is also the world’s highest-paid athlete today. Furthermore, he is the first footballer (third sportsman) to earn more than $1 billion in his career. With such enormous earnings, how much money does Ronaldo make a second?
Ronaldo’s net worth
How wealthy is the highest-paid sportsman today? According to Forbes, Cristiano Ronaldo earned $260 million between May 2023 and May 2024. The bulk of the sum came from his contract with the Saudi football club Al Nassr.
Our calculations will use this figure as his annual earnings to determine how much money Ronaldo makes a second.
How did Ronaldo get rich?
At the end of 2022, Ronaldo agreed to join Al Nassr until 2025 in a €200 million ($216 million) deal. The contract guaranteed him $75 million annually for his contribution on the field and the rest through various commercial agreements with the Saudi football club. The transfer came after a second stint with Manchester United, which ended badly, as Ronaldo felt “betrayed” by the club.
This is the third-largest contract in sports ever. As such, it reflects the fact that most of Ronaldo’s income comes from his football career. However, he has also displayed a keen sense for marketing and branding, successfully launching several business endeavors.
Although he began his football career with Sporting CP, it was Machester United that kickstarted the player’s rise to fame. Signed by Alex Ferguson in 2003 in a record-breaking deal for a teenager in England, Ronaldo achieved international prominence and his first Ballon d’Or in the English league.
In 2009, he transferred to Real Madrid for a then-record sum of €94 million ($101.7 million). He spent nine years in the Spanish club, becoming its all-time leading scorer and earning four Champions League titles and four additional Ballon d’Or awards.
In 2018, he joined Juventus for €100 million ($108 million), a record for an Italian club. He would win the 2021 Coppa Italia, becoming the first player to win every major domestic trophy in England, Spain, and Italy.
Besides his football club achievements, Ronaldo has profoundly impacted international football by playing with Portugal. In fact, he was a key figure for the national team, landing victories in the 2016 UEFA European Championship and the 2019 UEFA Nations League. Ronaldo ultimately won a record three UEFA Men’s Player of the Year Awards.
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Ronaldo’s other business endeavors
Ever since achieving breakthrough international success at Manchester United, Ronaldo has leveraged his massive popularity to land lucrative sponsorships for consumer products. These have included sportswear, clothing (including his boutique, CR7), cars, and video games.Â
His largest deal was with Nike (NYSE: NKE), which was signed for a lifetime and cost the company a staggering $1 billion. Among other things, the deal resulted in the Nike CR7 special edition shoes and various clothing pieces and accessories. Notably, Ronaldo was featured on the covers of FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer video games.
Forbes named Ronaldo the world’s highest-paid football player twice, and he remains so in 2024.
| Season | Total earnings |
| 2014 | $73 million |
| 2015 | $79 million |
| 2016 | $88 million |
| 2017 | $93 million |
| 2018 | $108 million |
| 2019 | $110 million |
| 2020 | $105 million |
| 2021 | $120 million |
| 2022 | $115 million |
| 2023 | $136 million |
| 2024 | $260 million |
Furthermore, Ronaldo is extremely popular on the internet, which serves as an additional marketing outlet. He is the most followed athlete on social media, with 170 million followers on Facebook, 635 million followers on Instagram, and 112.4 million followers on Twitter. In 2023, he also became a partial owner of Medialivre, a Portuguese media company, by investing.Â
Ronaldo published an autobiography, Moments, in 2007. He starred in several films, including Ronaldo: Tested to the Limit, Cristiano Ronaldo: The World at His Feet, and Ronaldo. Additionally, his name is in the Madeira Airport, a football campus, and a newly discovered galaxy,Â
How much money does Ronaldo make a second?
Our formula will use Forbes-reported 2024 revenue to determine how much Ronaldo makes in a second. This number will then be divided across weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds.
So, how much money does Ronaldo make a second? His 2024 earnings were $260 million. To see how much Ronaldo earns every second, we will divide the figure by the number of seconds in a year (31,536,000).
The accurate numbers are as follows: Cristiano Ronaldo makes approximately $8.24 per second based on the calculation and methodology explained above. This equals $494.67 per minute, $29,680.36 per hour, $712,328.77 per day, and $4,986,301.37 per week.Â
| Per second | $8.24 |
| Per minute | $494.67 |
| Per hour | $29,680.36 |
| Per day | $0.71 million ($712,328.77) |
| Per week | $5 million ($4,986,301.37) |
The bottom line
As the highest-paid athlete in the world right now, Cristiano Ronaldo earns more in a second than most people get paid by the hour. However, he is not the richest sportsperson in the world: he remains behind athletes like Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Magic Johnson, Lionel Messi, and Tiger Woods. Still, he has earned quite a formidable wealth and still has ample time to carve out his business niche once he retires.Â
Disclaimer: The content on this site should not be considered investment advice. Investing is speculative. When investing, your capital is at risk.
