Tiger Woods Tops Sports Illustrated's Fortunate 50

Turns out Vijay Singh can afford to pay embattled financial tycoon R. Allen Stanford's bail 50 times over. Singh is one of five golfers listed on Sport Illustrated's Fortunate 50 list, a rundown of the top 50 earners based on both on-court winnings and endorsements in the sports world.

Even after losing his lucrative deal to pedal Buicks, Tiger Woods made a mind-boggling $92 million in endorsements. Combined the other non-golf members of the top 10, which means everyone aside from Phil Mickelson, earned $97.5 in endorsements. Mickelson made a cool $46 million in endorsements. 

Here is the Top 10 with endorsement earnings in parenthesis:

1. Tiger Woods $99,737,626 ($92 million)
2. Phil Mickelson $52,950,356 ($46 million)
3. LeBron James $42,410,581 ($28 million)
4. Alex Rodriguez $39,000,000 ($6 million)
5. Shaquille O'Neal $35,000,000 ($15 million)
6. Kevin Garnett $34,7500,000 ($10 million)
7. Kobe Bryant $31,262,500 ($10 million)
8. Allen Iverson $28,937,500 ($7 million)
9. Derek Jeter $28,500,000 ($8.5 million)
10. Peyton Manning $27,000,000 ($13 million)

The other golfers who made the list, inluding the International 20:

41. Jim Furyk $16,263,127 ($11 million)
10. Vijay Singh $28,681,028
13. Sergio Garcia $24,976,830

The slumping economy did have a negative impact on the earnings of our top athletes. For the first time in the six years that SI has compiled this list, the average earnings of the athletes on the list dropped. Each athlete made an average of $23.6 million, which was down $1.5 million from 2008.

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