Unbelievable! Jon rahm not found in the list as Giant LIVcontracts shake up Forbes’ complete the story below
Great! Jon Rahm isn’t on the list because his Giant LIV deal confused Forbes. Complete the story below
Jon Rahm looks down at a putt during the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky.
No athlete has made more strides in the Forbes annual rankings than Jon Rahm. Here’s why. The 29-year-old Spaniard, ranked second on the recently published list, with Forbes estimating his total earnings over the past 12 months at $218 million, of which $198 million came from on-field earnings and contracts, and $20 million from other sources such as sponsorship deals.
To compile its ranking, income from May 1, 2023, to May 1, 2024. For LIV players who received guaranteed contracts, Forbes calculated those sums via conversations with industry sources and estimated that top LIV players received half of their guarantees upfront, with remaining signing bonus money to be paid through the course of the contracts. Soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo topped the list with earnings of $260 million.
Rahm wasn’t on last year’s list, but he shocked the golf world with his performance last December. The details of the contract have not been published, but it was previously reported that the number was at least $ 300 million in a few years. Laam won the PGA tour four times from January 2023 to April 2023. This includes the second major title master. He officially earned $16.5 million in winnings on the PGA Tour last season, and Forbes magazine lists Callaway, Mercedes-Benz, Rolex and Santander Group as his sponsors during that time. Rahm is yet to win since joining LIV Golf, but has never finished worse than 10th in seven starts. He has finished third twice. In his two major appearances since coming to LIV, Rahm finished tied for 45th at the Masters and lost at last week’s PGA Championship.
Rahm is one of five golfers on the Forbes Top 50 list, including Rory McIlroy (No. 19, $80.1 million total), Tiger Woods (No. 23, $67.2 million), Scottie Scheffler (No. 29, $59.2 million) and Cameron Smith (No. 43, $48 million). Like Rahm, Smith also left the PGA Tour for LIV, having won the 2022 British Open Championship at St. Andrews and signed with LIV at the end of the PGA Tour season. Smith’s contract is rumored to be worth nine figures.
In last year’s report, the only golfers in the top 10 were Dustin Johnson (sixth, $107 million) and Phil Mickelson (seventh, $106 million), both of whom had just signed with LIV. Last year marked the first time in six years that Woods was not named the world’s highest-paid golfer.
A possible merger between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s PIF, which funds LIV Golf, has made little progress in the past year. Rahm made headlines last week when he missed the cut at Valhalla but said he still considered himself a member of the PGA Tour. And he did.
“Suspended or not, I’m still a member of the PGA Tour,” Rahm said last Tuesday. “I always want to support the PGA Tour and I think that’s an important difference: I don’t feel like I’m on the other side. I just do
n’t play there.”
