Athlete earns more per minute than Cristiano Ronaldo and Erling Haaland - and you may never have heard of them

One athlete earns more per minute than the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Erling Haaland, and you may have never heard of him.

Indeed, Indianapolis Colts star Matt Gay signed the largest contract for a free-agent kicker in NFL history earlier this year.

The four-year deal sees Gay earn a reported £7.5million-per-season following previous spells with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and LA Rams, winning the Super Bowl with the latter in 2022.

While that is a smaller annual salary than both Ronaldo and Haaland, he is paid more per minute than the pair, according to research from Action Network.

Having spent just 560 seconds on the pitch this season, the 29-year-old has earned £133,000-per-minute. Naturally those earnings see him as the highest paid NFL kicker per minute.

He has so far made £1.24million while converting 12 of his 14 field goal this term.

As per the research, calculated before Ronaldo’s 120 minutes in the King’s Cup on Tuesday, Gay earns almost four times as much as five-time Ballon d’Or winner Ronaldo per minute.

Before Tuesday Ronaldo played 1,076 minutes for Al-Nassr while he is paid a reported salary of £175,000,000 by the Saudi Pro League side.

This equates to just under £41,000-per-minute so far this term.

Raheem Sterling comes closest of the Premier League stars to Gay’s earnings, having allegedly raked in £4,800-per-minute across his 743 minutes of action so far this term, with Chelsea paying him a salary of £17million.

Meanwhile, Haaland, who makes £19.4million-a-year at Manchester City, has played 1,041 minutes for the treble winners this term and in turn, made £4,000 for every minute he plays.

Gay is also said to make more per minute than Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, according to

According to Bloomberg, Bezos has a net worth of £61.5billion while he is estimated to earn £117,000-per-minute. This is some £16,000 less than Gay is paid by the Colts for each minute this season.

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Topics: Football, Cristiano Ronaldo, Erling Haaland, Fan Reactions, Raheem Sterling

Chris Byfield

Sport journalist with experience writing on football, rugby, boxing and the Olympics. I'm also a Crystal Palace fan. Please don't hold this against me.