By Weston Blasi
Portuguese star’s deal with Saudi club Al Nassr is set to be the most lucrative sports contract ever in average annual value
Cristiano Ronaldo has signed a record-setting new deal with Saudi Arabian football club Al Nassr for what, at almost $700 million over just two years, amounts to the highest average annual salary for a player contract in sports history. And if the money weren’t sweet enough, the lucrative contract comes with an array of nonsalary compensation and perks.
According to reporting by the widely followed Italian sportswriter Fabrizio Romano and the Sun, Ronaldo will earn approximately $244.4 million per year in salary, plus a bevy of additional compensation including $33.6 million as a signing bonus; a 15% equity stake in the Riyadh club, to which Ronaldo jumped from Manchester United (MANU) (UK:0Z1Q) in 2023; a $5.5 million bonus if he leads the Saudi Pro League in goals; $5.5 million in private-jet credits; $82.4 million in sponsorship pacts with Saudi Arabian businesses; and the provision of 16 full-time personal staff members.
Personal staff as perk
Those 16 employees are said to include three drivers, four housekeepers, two chefs, three gardeners and four security guards.
Another bonus for Ronaldo: that there is no income tax in Saudi Arabia.
“He’s probably getting paid as much as the entire league is generating in revenue,” Victor Matheson, an economics professor at the College of the Holy Cross who specializes in sports, told MarketWatch.
Ronaldo, 40, widely ranked among the best footballers of his generation, is arguably the highest-profile player to join the Saudi league. The SPL has in recent years sought to lure big-name players from top European leagues with eye-popping contracts and extensive perks.
“A new chapter begins. Same passion, same dream. Let’s make history together,” Ronaldo said in an Instagram post, alongside a picture showing him holding up a jersey reading “Ronaldo 2027.” The five-time Ballon d’Or winner, born on the Portuguese island Madeira, came to fame as a forward with Sporting Lisbon; Manchester United, where he had two stints; and Real Madrid, where he played nine seasons.
Shades of Beckham
Perks like those reportedly afforded Ronaldo are headline grabbers, but he is not the first player to receive atypical contract considerations.
“The closest thing we have seen to this is probably David Beckham’s deal with LA Galaxy in MLS [2007],” the sports economist Matheson said. “When he was signed, he was making more personally than any other team, and making as much as the bottom eight teams combined in payroll with just his salary. And part of that deal included rights to have his own franchise in the future, which turned into Inter Miami.”
Beckham’s deal back in 2007 included a clause that would allow him to purchase the rights to an MLS team at a later date for a set fee of $25 million, with some stipulations, per the Athletic.
Matheson added that the Beckham deal and its perks “worked out well for the MLS,” which has seen a revenue boom and further expansion in the years that followed.
Another athlete who received an unusual contract add-on was Lionel Messi, Ronaldo’s longtime archrival in the top echelon of Spain’s La Liga. He now plays with Inter Miami.
When Messi signed with the Miami club in 2023, the deal contained unique clauses that compensated him outside the bounds of a traditional salary. Messi negotiated revenue-sharing agreements with MLS kit maker Adidas (XE:ADS) (ADDYY) and MLS TV partner Apple (AAPL). As part of his contract, Messi earns a cut of all revenue from Apple TV’s MLS Season Pass streaming service, according to the sports-business publication Sportico.
Contracts that feature compensation beyond salary are not permitted in major U.S. sports leagues including the NFL and the NBA, however, because they would circumvent salary-cap rules.
Outside sports, high-profile business leaders have historically been offered perks and nontraditional compensation, too.
For example, Meta (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the company’s then-chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, were reported to have spent more than $6 million of company money on private jets in 2022.
Salesforce (CRM) CEO Mark Benioff was eligible for as much as $3 million in personal security expenses, plus $1.6 million in private-jet costs, in that company’s 2024 fiscal year, according to a proxy statement.
The latter is a popular perk, as S&P 500 SPX component companies spent $65 million on private-jet travel for executives in 2022. That was a 50% increase from 2019.
Some executives continue to enjoy costly perks even after stepping down. Former Morgan Stanley (MS) CEO James Gorman, for example, has reportedly been granted access to a company car and driver, as well as $400,000 a year in compensation, in his new “nonemployee adviser” role.
-Weston Blasi
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06-30-25 1837ET
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