2021 top earner Conor McGregor once again absent from Forbes' richest athletes list
There's plenty of basketball, soccer and golf on the list. But see which combat sports athletes made the top 50.
Three years after topping Forbes’ list of the world’s richest athletes, Conor McGregor is nowhere to be found on the 2024 chart for the second straight year.
McGregor had been the lone MMA fighter to make the list starting in 2016 and had been a mainstay in the top 25 until 2023.
In 2021, McGregor, a former UFC two-division champion, was the top athlete on the long-published financial magazine’s annual list with $180 million. Forbes reported that $22 million of that came from fighting, but a whopping $158 million was from endorsements, far more than anyone else on the chart, and around $150 million of that haul was when he sold his share in Proper No. Twelve.
In 2022, McGregor dropped to 22nd on the list at a reported $52 million. Only Dallas Cowboys QB Dak Prescott had a more dramatic drop that year when he went from No. 4 to 69. Before he topped the 2021 list, McGregor was 16th in 2020, 21st in 2019, 4th in 2018, 24th in 2017 and 85th in 2016.
It might come as little surprise that the Irishman stayed off the list again this year. He most recently fought nearly three years ago, when he lost for the third time in four fights and broke his leg against Dustin Poirier, who knocked him out for the second time in a half-year. Recovery, rehab and other projects have kept him out since then.
McGregor hasn’t been hibernating, though. He coached Season 31 of “The Ultimate Fighter” opposite Michael Chandler last year and will fight him at UFC 303 in June. He also had a key role in Amazon Prime’s “Road House” reboot starring Jake Gyllenhaal, which had enough viewers to warrant word of a sequel in the works – which if the post-credits teaser is to be trusted, will include McGregor.
When McGregor topped the chart in 2021, he was just the sixth athlete to sit at No. 1 over a 20-year period. Only Tiger Woods, who topped the list for 10 straight years, Floyd Mayweather, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Roger Federer reached No. 1 in the 20 years prior to McGregor’s big rise.
The Forbes list estimates athletes’ earnings from May the previous year through April the following year.
Take a look at Forbes’ top 50 on this year’s list below.