As revealed by Sporting Intelligence’s newly-published annual “Global Sports Salaries Survey,” the title of sport’s “highest-paid” team now belongs to the NBA‘s Oklahoma City Thunder.
Crunching the ”first-team pay” numbers for 348 teams across seven separate sports in 18 different leagues, Sporting Intelligence’s comprehensive yearly breakdown takes a thorough global approach to revealing the sports teams with the greatest incomes. Most notably, the top three highest-paid teams in sports all come from the NBA: Golden State Warriors come in at number three with $8.9 million USD as the average pay per player, Cleveland Cavaliers falls from the top spot to number two with $9 million USD average pay per player, and Oklahoma City Thunder earns the number one ranking courtesy of a $9.3 million USD per player figure.
Russell Westbrook – who just cashed out during the debut of his first fashion collection – is Oklahoma City’s top-paid player after bringing in $28.5 million USD during the 2017-18 season, LeBron James is Cleveland’s highest-paid athlete at $33.3 million USD and Stephen Curry received Golden State’s best recent annual paycheck thanks to a $34.7 million USD payout.
While the top ten primarily spotlights NBA teams, FC Bareclona comes in at number four with $8.58 million USD pay per player, Paris Saint-Germain hits number five at $8.41 million USD per player and Real Madrid comes in at number nine with $8.09 million USD.
You can check out Sporting Intelligence’s Global Sports Salaries Survey in its entirety online. For more news concerning OKC, check out Carmelo Anthony’s most recent feature.