The 10 highest paid athletes of 2015

Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao have been named as the world's top two highest paid sportspeople in Forbes' annual rich list.

The boxers earned a combined $460 million in the past 12 months, mostly thanks to their lucrative 'fight of the century' at the MGM Arena in May.

Mayweather's eye-watering £194m sees him atop of the Forbes rich list for 2015 while Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo is the highest paid footballer with earnings of over £51m.

Seven Britons feature in the 100-person list, with Rory McIlroy, Lewis Hamilton, Gareth Bale, Wayne Rooney, Andy Murray, Justin Rose and Frank Lampard included.

The top 10 highest paid sportspeople of 2015:

Rory McIlroy is down in 12th place on the Forbes list on £31.25m, behind eighth-placed Phil Mickelson and ninth-placed Tiger Woods, despite winning two Majors and becoming undisputed world number one last season.

That shows the importance of endorsements to the top earners in sport - and also accounts for Roger Federer being far and away the best-paid tennis player in the world at number five, despite the fact that he failed to win a Grand Slam title for the second year running. Novak Djokovic, the world number one, is in 13th place on the list on £31.15, just below McIlroy. 

Lewis Hamilton is the highest-paid F1 driver on the Forbes table with £25.2m, putting him in 15th place. That's two better than Fernando Alonso on £23m, and six better than Sebastian Vettel on £21.3m. 

Vettel won't be behind Hamilton for long, however. The figures released on Thursday relate to the last 12 months, and therefore Vettel's salary at Red Bull accounts for his lower placement.

But with the German's contract at Ferrari has widely reported to be worth around £50m a year, the 27-year-old looks likely to challenge Cristiano Ronaldo (£51.7m) for third place this time next year - particularly if he can boost his pretty lousy £650,000 a year endorsement income. Having said that, Hamilton too will see his pay increase after agreeing a new contract at Mercedes recently that will pay him around £35m a year.

Baseball accounts for more people on the list than any other sport, though the top-paid player - Jon Lester, on £22m a year - comes in 19th place.

The best-paid woman is Maria Sharapova, whose £19.2m puts her in 27th place. She and Serena Williams (47th, with £15.9m) are the only two female athletes to make the top 100.

- Source: Eurosport