Sports Illustrated has published their annual Top 20 Highest International Sports earners and naturally MotoGP superstar Valentino Rossi is on the list, even if the 9 times World champion has dropped from fifth to seventh from last year.
The Italian continues to earn a whopping $ 35.
000.
000 a year in salary, bonuses, endorsement income and appearance fees, which includes Monster energy drink sponsor who’s two year endorsement is worth $3.
2 million and they dished out an additional $650,000 when he took last year’s MotoGP title.
Rossi still beats out the top F1 drivers, which is amazing considering the overwhelming number of people in Europe who tune in to watch the much more popular Formula 1 championship compared to MotoGP.
The Doctor after his first really serious injury, the drop in viewing audiences while he was recovering, his remarkable comeback, the high profile, yet to be announced switch to Ducati (his salary is rumored to be around 15 million euros, despite denials from Ducati’s Filippo Preziosi) has captured even the attention of the very mainstream Wall Street Journal.