The richest Australian athletes of 2025, ranked
It pays to be good at sport. Here, we count down the highest earning Australian men and women who are kicking goals on and off their respective playing fields
By Cayle Reid
AS A SPORTS-OBSESSED nation where children are handed balls at roughly the same time as books, taught the basics of just about every popular sport at school and grow up with near-constant exposure to multiple footballing codes on primetime television, it should come as no surprise that Australia has produce some of the most talented – and by extension, the highest earning – athletes in the world. We’re counting them down from 15-1.
While various forms of oval-ball games, cricket and swimming are Australia’s bread and butter, our homegrown athletes have permeated some of the world’s biggest sporting leagues – the kind that pay much better than domestic sports. No current NRL, AFL or cricket players appear in this list, proving that the real money lies overseas. NBA players make up more than half of the rankings, so if moneymaking is your goal, consider swapping out your footy for a basketball.
To determine the placings on this list, we gathered information and data on either current contracts or prize money dating from this time last year to now – which was necessary in sports like tennis and golf, which don’t pay much of a wage, but offer exorbitant winnings. With the nitty-gritty technical details out of the way, let’s get into the list. These are the 15 richest Australian athletes of 2025, in terms of yearly earnings.
All figures have been converted to AUD and are accurate as of September 11, 2025.
Who are the highest paid Australian athletes?
15. Sam Kerr
Yearly earnings: $3.34 million
She may be the first and only female athlete to appear in these rankings, but Sam Kerr earns more than any other Australian footballer – and that includes all sports that call themselves football: soccer, rugby league, rugby union and Aussie rules. As one of the best footballers to grace this planet, Kerr commands a monstrous pay package from her domestic club, Chelsea. A sneak peak to what’s ahead: Kerr isn’t the only Esquire cover alumnus on this list.
14. Jock Landale
Yearly earnings: $3.7 million
Jock Landale signed a new contract with the Memphis Grizzlies in the offseason. The new deal is less than what Landale earned last season, but it does allow him to stay in the NBA. And with a name like Jock and a height above two metres, what other career path is Landale going to follow?
13. Alex de Minaur
Yearly earnings: 4.26 million
Alex de Minaur, Australia’s top-ranked tennis player in either men’s or women’s singles, has entrenched himself in the ATP’s top ten. He’s made the quarterfinals at six of the last eight grand slams and won the Washington DC Open in July. Needless to say, de Minaur’s winnings have taken a boost this year, and his spot on this list reflects that.
12. Dante Exum
Yearly earnings: $5 million
Dante Exum signed a one-year extension with the Dallas Mavericks this month. He took a small pay-cut to remain with the team, as his new salary is slightly less than his previous one. Even so, Exum is unlikely to see much playing time this season in the Mavs’ crowded backcourt.
11. Joe Ingles
Yearly earnings: $5.4 million
There’s so much money to go around in the NBA that some of the highest paid Australian athletes spend most of their time sitting on the bench. In the past, Joe Ingles has been an elite three-point shooter and scrappy defender on some of the league’s best teams. Now, he’s taken on more of a leadership role for the super-young Orlando Magic, who don’t mind paying for what is effectively a second coach.
10. Jason Day
Yearly earnings: $5.6 million
Former world number one Jason Day made a comeback in 2023, returning to the top 20. This year, he’s already pulled in a cool five million from the PGA. The comeback seems well worth it.
9. Cameron Smith
Yearly earnings: $7.3 million
A small asterisk here, because there’s a chance that Cam Smith should be topping this list. We know that Smith defected to LIV in 2022 for an eyewatering $140 million contract, but we don’t know how long that contract runs for. If it’s a two-year deal, Smith would be in first place on this list. If it’s a ten-year deal, he’ll move up a few spots, but won’t crack the top five. To play it safe, we’re not going to speculate on the details and only use Smith’s LIV winnings for the year to date.
8. Liam Hendriks
Yearly earnings: $7.56 million
Unless you’re tapped into Major League Baseball, you may not have heard of Liam Hendriks, but the baseball world certainly has. Over the last decade, Hendriks has established himself as one of the best closing pitchers in baseball. A three-time all-star, Hendriks’ career took a detour when he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in early 2023. Now cancer free, Hendriks signed a new contract in 2024 that pays him $7.5 million per year.
7. Oscar Piastri
Yearly earnings: $8.95 million
Racing phenom and Esquire digital cover star Oscar Piastri has rapidly risen through F1’s ranks to become the drivers’ championship leader. Piastri is Australia’s highest paid F1 driver – and his contract is looking increasingly like an unbelievable bargain for McLaren, as his teammate Lando Norris makes more than three times as much. Piastri’s pay will be bumped up to $41 million from next season after signing an extension earlier this year. Once that salary kicks in, he’ll top this list.
6. Dyson Daniels
Yearly earnings: $11.64 million
Dyson Daniels is a testament to the unparalleled paygrade of basketball. Daniels was selected with the eighth pick in the 2022 NBA draft by the New Orleans Pelicans and is still on his relatively small-scale rookie contract. Yes, that lofty figure above is what the NBA agrees to pay its freshest, unproven players before they’ve even played a game. He’s in line for a much bigger contract with the Atlanta Hawks, once his rookie deal expires at season’s end.
5. Marc Leishman
Yearly earnings: $14.28 million
As LIV contracts aren’t public, we can only guess at how much Marc Leishman is paid. That said, we do know how much he has made in winnings so far this season, which is a tidy number courtesy of a win at LIV’s Miami event in April.
4. Matisse Thybulle
Yearly earnings: $17.5 million
Matisse Thybulle has established himself as one of the best 3&D players in the NBA. Previously known solely for his lockdown defensive abilities, Thybulle has added above average three-point shooting to his repertoire. To the basketball-averse, these words might look like binary code, but just know that NBA teams are willing to fork out extra cash for a player of such a skillset, as the Portland Trailblazers are with Thybulle.
3. Josh Green
Yearly earnings: $20.67 million
Like we mentioned earlier, while they’re hardly strapped for cash beforehand, top NBA draft picks typically need to wait until their second contract for the cash to really start rolling in. Josh Green is one such beneficiary of that standard. The 24-year-old inked a new deal two offseasons ago, ensuring his place among the highest paid of all Australian athletes.
2. Jordan Mailata
Yearly earnings: $33 million
While there are no current NRL players on this list, as domestically popular Australian sports don’t pay comparatively well, Jordan Mailata did pursue a career in rugby before making the fiscally sound decision to switch to American football. Since the change, Mailata has signed a four-year contract worth a total of $95 million, and a three-year extension worth $98 million, which will keep him with the Philadelphia Eagles until at least 2028 and makes him the fifth highest paid offensive lineman in the NFL.
1. Josh Giddey
Yearly earnings: $37.8 million
After a season that saw him average career highs in assists, rebounds and three-point shooting percentage, Josh Giddey has earned a new contract from the Chicago Bulls and become Australia’s highest paid athlete. Giddey averaged 21.4 points, 10.7 rebounds and 9.1 assists in his final 20 games of the 2024-25 season with 49.5/44.3/81 shooting splits. If he were to average those numbers over a full season, Giddey would be pushing for All Star selection. The 22-year-old has now been rewarded with a whopping four-year, $150 million contract.
Related:
