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Football

20th May 2015

Which sports team pays the most in salaries? It’s not Man City, Real Madrid or the LA Dodgers

That's a little surprising

Darragh Murphy

We didn’t think Paris Saint-Germain were paying their players peanuts but we also wouldn’t have guessed that they’d be the biggest paying sports team in the world.

The latest results from the Global Sports Salaries Survey reveal that the Ligue 1 champions are the best-paid sports team with an average annual pay of £5,298,693 (€7,407,786) and an average weekly pay of £101,898 (€142,457).

The research, carried out on sports teams from major leagues all over the world for the past 6 years, makes for fascinating reading with eight of the top ten coming from the world of football and five Premier League sides making the top 20.

Kitchee v Paris Saint-Germain

The top 30 looks like this in the order of ranking, team, sport, country, average annual pay and average weekly pay.

1 Paris Saint-Germain Football France £5,298,693 £101,898
2 Real Madrid Football Spain £5,040,520 £96,933
3 Manchester City Football England £5,015,122 £96,445
4 Barcelona Football Spain £4,715,116 £90,675
5 Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball U.S.A. £4,679,937 £89,999
6 Manchester United Football England £4,679,377 £89,988
7 Bayern Munich Football Germany £4,468,643 £85,935
8 Chelsea Football England £4,353,056 £83,713
9 New York Yankees Baseball U.S.A. £4,263,577 £81,992
10 Arsenal Football England £4,054,066 £77,963
11 Brooklyn Nets Basketball U.S.A. £3,645,286 £70,102
12 Detroit Tigers Baseball U.S.A. £3,620,913 £69,633
13 San Francisco Giants Baseball U.S.A. £3,597,130 £69,175
14 Liverpool Football England £3,509,286 £67,486
15 NY Knicks Basketball U.S.A. £3,431,128 £65,983
16 Washington Nationals Baseball U.S.A. £3,317,177 £63,792
17 Boston Red Sox Baseball U.S.A. £3,312,564 £63,703
18 LA Clippers Basketball U.S.A. £3,111,928 £59,845
19 Sacramento Kings Basketball U.S.A. £2,960,046 £56,924
20 Denver Nuggets Basketball U.S.A. £2,939,555 £56,530
21 Toronto Raptors Basketball U.S.A. £2,935,584 £56,454
22 Memphis Grizzlies Basketball U.S.A. £2,919,687 £56,148
23 Cleveland Cavaliers Basketball U.S.A. £2,885,116 £55,483
24 Juventus Football Italy £2,859,195 £54,985
25 Golden State Warriors Basketball U.S.A. £2,852,396 £54,854
26 Washington Wizards Basketball U.S.A. £2,839,564 £54,607
27 Philadelphia Phillies Baseball U.S.A. £2,829,578 £54,415
28 Miami Heat Basketball U.S.A. £2,819,067 £54,213
29 Chicago Bulls Basketball U.S.A. £2,817,858 £54,190
30 Tottenham Hotspur Football England £2,811,977 £54,077

Note to Brendan Rodgers – don’t let Raheem Sterling see this list.

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