From a Trophy to $5 Billion: How Have Prizes Increased in Sport?

The prize money for some of sport’s biggest competitions just keeps growing. Today, a boxer can take home hundreds of millions in a single punch, and a golfer can bag tens of millions in a single stroke. This year’s Wimbledon had the highest prize pool the Grand Slam has ever offered with just over $85.899 million up for grabs. However, it’s not even tennis’ highest paid tournament with the US Open in 2025 offering a prize pool of $90 million. 

Believe it or not, there used to be a time when many of the highest paid competitions today were done for nothing more than a shiny trophy and pride. The Champions League, for example, which offers the most prize money of all with a total pool of $5.074 billion available in the 2025/26 tournament, only started awarding cash prizes in 1992/93 after its rebrand from the European Cup. 

So, just how much has the money available from sport’s top competitions increased over time? Well, at WSN we’ve crunched the numbers to see how prize money has increased in sports biggest events over time.

The Highest Paid Competitions Across Sports

Here are some of the most popular sporting events in the world and the prize money on offer for winning them. We’ve also compared today’s winnings from what the winners would have received when the event was first held, and added a column to show what the original prize money would translate to today after adjusting for inflation. 

• Soccer: 86.3% 

• Boxing: 7%

• F1: 2.4%

• Baseball: 1.6% 

• Tennis: 1.5%

• Golf: 0.7%

• Horse Racing: 0.3%

• Football: 0.3%

Over $5 Billion to Win in the Champions League

The prize pool on offer for the Champions League, a staggering $5.074 billion, completely dwarfs the rest of the highest sport events earnings. Although the money is distributed throughout the different rounds, it still means incredible earnings for the teams who earn a place in the competition.  

Here’s the breakdown of what teams earned in each round of the 2025/26 competition: 

• The League Phase: $21,562,891 

• Bonus per win: $2,410,371

• Bonus per draw: $803,457

• Reward per place climbed in table: $321,384

• Bonus for finishing ninth to sixteenth: $1,164,978

• Bonus for finishing eighth to first: $2,276,394

• Round of 16: $12,719,218

• Quarter-finals: $14,459,742

• Semi-finals: $17,404,920

• Runners-up: $20,500,000

• Winners: $27,800,000

The 2025/26 winners PSG, who won their second consecutive Champions League, were projected to have made around $170 million from the competition. Runners-up Arsenal managed to claim around $127.2 million to soften the blow of losing the trophy at the final hurdle. 

Before it was known as the Champions League, the European Cup started in 1955 as a tournament for Europe’s elite clubs to compete in. There was no prize money attached until the competition was rebranded into the Champions League in the 1992/93 season. 

When prize money was introduced, the eight clubs in the competition were paid depending on their results. For a loss they received nothing, for a draw they received $135,000 and for a win they received $270,000. Today, a single bonus for a win is $2,410,371, around 8.9 times as much as received in the 1992/23 season for a win. That’s before considering all the additional money of just making it into the tournament, or the extras awarded per place in the League Stage.

Why Is Soccer So Wealthy? 

Prize money in soccer dominates with the Champions League alone offering well over all the other sporting events combined. Soccer competitions can afford to offer high prizes thanks to lucrative partnerships with brands and sponsors. As the world’s most popular sport, with over 5 billion estimated fans, soccer can also command high prices for the television rights to show competitions like the Champions League. 

It’s important to note that all the money won in the Champions League is paid to the club, rather than directly to the players. While they’re likely to see the winnings trickle down in performance-based bonuses, the vast majority of the money will go back into the incredibly expensive business of running a soccer club.

Bountiful Boxing

The next highest prize pool is for the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor fight in August 2017, which had a whopping purse of $410 million. One of the most iconic fights of modern boxing, it saw the eleven-time, five-division boxing world champion, Floyd Mayweather, take on the two-division MMA world champion, Conor McGregor. 

Mayweather entered the ring with an unblemished record of 49-0, while McGregor boasted a 21-3 record. After ten rounds, Mayweather won by technical knockout to surpass the record of Hall of Famer Rocky Marciano with 50 wins to zero losses. The bout had the second highest pay-per-view buying rate in history (behind Mayweather vs. Pacquiao), but commanded the highest purse in the sport’s history. 

Here’s what each fighter took home: 

• Winner: Floyd Mayweather Jr - $280,000,000

• Loser: Conor McGregor - $130,000,000

The First Prize Fights

The first prize fight dates all the way back to 1681 in England when the Duke of Albemarle organized the first recorded paid fight featuring his butcher and butler. Although the exact purse isn’t clear, we do know the winner, the butler, took it all, including a share of the wagers. 

The earliest fight which we know the prize of was the 1738 bout in England between Jack Broughton and George Stevenson. The victor, Broughton, received a purse of £100, about $35,000 in today’s money.  

A More than 770% Increase in Winner’s Purse 

Prize money in boxing has grown astronomically, especially within the last fifty to sixty years. 

Mayweather’s winnings of $280,000,000 are a vast increase from the winner’s purse of the most iconic fight of all time, Sonny Liston vs. Muhammad Ali in 1964. Ali was the shock winner of that February 1964 bout, in what most consider boxing’s biggest upset of all time. 

For defeating the heavyweight champion of the world, who entered the ring with an intimidating 35-1 record, Ali received a purse of $362,000. That’s 773.5 times lower than the purse received by Mayweather in his victory over McGregor. Although he was the winner in the ring, Ali actually received considerably less than Liston who banked $1,360,000 for the fight. That higher purse is still 95.6 times lower than McGregor and 205.9 times less than Mayweather received for their fight. 

This visual comparison shows just how vast an increase in prize money that is:

Pay-per-view is the key reason why purses in boxing can be so high in the modern day. The fight between McGregor and Mayweather was available to buy across cable, digital streaming services and even apps. It had a high price point of $89.95, the same price point as the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight. The fight was so popular on PPV that many streaming services crashed, causing the start to be delayed by an hour to address the issues.

Pressure for Tennis Prizes to Increase

Tennis, the fifth highest paying sport on our list, has seen a recent spike in prize money on offer. After sustained pressure from the sport’s big names, including 24 time title winner Novak Djokovic, the Grand Slams have begun increasing their prize pool. 

Last year, the US Open saw the highest prize pool ever for a tennis tournament with a total of $90 million available to win and Wimbledon was quick to follow in 2026 with an increased $85.9 million pool. 

26% Increase in Second Round Winnings at Wimbledon

The biggest increase in winnings won’t be felt only by the victor of the grand slams, rather it’s been distributed over the rounds so those who go out earlier receive more. Djokovic, and others who have put pressure on World Tennis through cutting short media interviews, stressed the importance of increased funding for lower tournament seeds in order for them to continue their development in the costly sport. 

Here’s how the increases from 2025 to 2026 work out across Wimbledon for the men’s and women’s singles: 

*The qualifying rounds, doubles and wheelchair matches are what bring Wimbledon to a total prize pool of $85.9 million

It’s even more of an incredible increase when you compare it to the first Wimbledon in 1968 which had a total $35,000 prize pool for the whole competition. Now, each of those who exit the grand slam during the first round earn over three times that amount. It also represents a staggering 1,800 times increase in prize money since the first Wimbledon. 

1,670% Increase in MLB Postseason Winnings

Baseball’s postseason has also experienced a staggering increase in prize money. The 2024 postseason had a total prize pool of $92.9 million. Around $46.4 million of that went to the winners LA Dodgers, runners-up, the Yankees, received around $31 million and the other teams who made the postseason shared the remaining $15.5 million. 

The World Series, which features the top two teams of the postseason, is fairly unique in that it doesn’t have a set prize pool when the competition starts. Instead, the money on offer is made up of the income generated through ‘gate receipts’ (fan attendance and income) generated throughout the postseason. The introduction of additional Wild Card games to the series has dramatically increased revenue, and therefore the prize pool, of the postseason. 

The Original Postseason

The inaugural MLB postseason in 1903 featured the Boston Red Sox and Pittsburgh Pirates. They shared a total prize pool of $55,500, the total revenue of the tickets sold for the World Series, 1,670 times smaller than the 2024 prize. 

In an odd turn of events, the players for the runners-up, the Pirates, each took home more than the victorious Red Sox. They each bagged a $1,316.25 share of the winnings, while the Red Sox players received $1,182.82. That’s because Barney Dreyfuss, the owner of the Pirates, was so proud of his team that he donated his cut of the winnings to the players.

Why Have Prizes in Sport Increased So Much? 

There’s been some monumental increases in the prize money available in some of sport’s most popular, and well paying, competitions. From playing for pride and a trophy, the Champions League has today become the highest paying tournament of all with over $5 billion available to win. F1’s Constructors Championship also started out without any prize money attached, and today it’s the third highest prize in sport with $140,000,000 paid out to teams in 2024. 

The reason behind the vast increases in prize money available for many of these sports comes down to television rights. The Super Bowl, MLB Postseason and Champions League are some of the most watched sporting events on television. Broadcasters will fight over the rights to show these events, and that drives up prices. Pile on top of that sponsorships, brand deals and partnerships, and we begin to understand just why today’s sporting events are able to offer prizes which spiral into the hundreds of millions.