Who Is The Highest Paid Athlete Of All Time?

“Gaius Appuleius Diocles Is The Highest Paid Athlete Of All Time Earning More Than $15B” (in today’s dollars).

7 thoughts on “Who Is The Highest Paid Athlete Of All Time?

  1. I see my comments didn’t generate any response. I guess what I was told about my idea for the Star Wars sequels really wouldn’t have been crowd pleasers.

    I thought the sequels should have Leia as Prime Minister of the Republic and she appoints her more head in the clouds brother as Finance Minister (Treasury Secretary.) The sequels focus on Luke preparing the Republic budget as he travels with the true heroes of any Republic, the civil servants, especially the accountants and economists throughout the galaxy.

    I guess it wouldn’t have been a hit but I still think it would have been better than what they’ve done so far which is just a remake of the first three films.

    1. Bringing up Star Wars, that reminds me there is a conspiracy theory that the way Darth Vader died in Return of the Jedi isn’t how he really died.

      The conspiracy theory is that Darth Vader was actually assassinated by Sirhan Solo.

  2. there are a couple more academic points I also find interesting. First, is how inflation statistics are calculated. When people are presented a calculated number, it seems most regard it as strictly objective. So, most people seem to either believe it’s completely true or completely ‘fake news.’

    However, there is a lot of subjectivity in deriving inflation statistics. The first is what counts in both the components and the weighting of these components in the ‘basket of goods’ that are looked at.

    Even more interesting is how changes to goods over time are considered. A mid sized mid priced car in the early 1980s (shortly before all the computerization of cars) was around $5,000 (1980s dollars.) The average mid sized mid priced car now is around $25,000. So, does this mean that, for inflation math, that cars are 5 times more expensive? Actually, no. Cars have changed a lot in nearly 40 years: there are many more safety features in cars now and many optional features 40 years ago are now standard (and better quality.)

    These ‘new and improved’ features are taken into account in calculating inflation statistics. I remember Paul Solman the PBS NewsHour economics reporter did a segment about this probably 25 years ago when it was still the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour. Unfortunately, I can’t find it online.

    Of course, other features of cars today, that they use much lighter metals and the computerization that makes it almost impossible for a lay mechanic to fix their own automobile engines maybe aren’t considered improvements. I don’t know how those sorts of things are considered by inflation calculators.

    I don’t know how it’s done these days, but the Paul Solman video showed government statisticians at the BLS going to various retailers with checklists that described the products in the ‘basket of goods’ and seeing if there were any changes, obviously first in the price, but also in the ‘new and improved’ quality of the good and in any change in unit measurement. (When inflation reached its peak in the late 1970s, it became fairly common for prices of food to remain the same, but for the quantity to be reduced.)

    I believe there are graduate level courses in economics for quantifying quality improvements and these various other considerations.

    So, these are some ways how inflation (CPI) numbers include subjectivity without simply believing that the inflation numbers are ‘fake news.’

    1. I forgot to complete the point: due to these quality improvements, similar type automobiles are less than 5 times greater in inflation calculations even though the ‘raw numbers’ ($5,000 to $25,000 are 5 times greater.)

      The other interesting thing is just how poor Ancient Rome was. The average per capita GDP in 150 AD was around $1,250 a year in today’s $ according to the wiki article.

      The usual explanation for this poverty is lack of industrial development which is put down to the widespread use of slaves. In fact, economic historians generally reject this argument. The mainstream argument in economic history, is that outside of military purposes, Ancient Rome was disdainful of technology based on religious/societal beliefs. For instance, very simple agricultural technologies that were used elsewhere and known about in Ancient Rome that would have greatly eased the burden of labor were rejected. In short, it seems, Roman religious/societal beliefs made them concerned about their men becoming soft or sissies.

      The interesting thing about Roman slaves is that slavery was considered the humane approach, because the alternative was to simply kill captured defeated soldiers. This is, for instance, why The Bible around this time does not condemn slavery outright but outlines humane treatment of slaves.

      One thing people don’t seem to appreciate is that when real wealth increases it’s often dismissed as letting people ‘buy more stuff.’ However, increased wealth greatly improves the choices that individuals and societies can make. Rome could only enslave or kill captured prisoners of war because with GDP per capita of $1,250 a year, they could not afford to jail them. While I would not say that the direct financial cost of keeping people in U.S jails can be outright dismissed, the U.S taxpayers can collectively afford it.

      In economics the greater choices that are available as real wealth increases is part of what is known as the ‘production possibilities frontier.’

  3. There are a number of ways to calculate these sorts of things. According to the wiki article on Ancient Rome GDP, their annual GDP was around 18 billion Sesterces per year in 150 AD. According to this Diocles earned around 36 million Sesterces over 24 years, or approximately 1.5 million Secterces a year. So, he earned about 1/1,200 of the total Roman GDP. The U.S economy is around $20 trillion a year and 1/1,200 of that is, indeed, around $15 billion a year. So, based on the information and the logic of determining wealth the article uses, it checks out.

    However, total Roman GDP in 1990 U.S dollars according to that Wiki article is $43.4 billion (or $620 per capita.) U.S inflation has averaged around 2.4% since 1990, so over 29 years prices have roughly doubled. (1.024^29 = around 2)

    So, this is a total of around $87 billion. 1/1,200 of that is around $7.25 million per annum. This total is not that different than the $6.49 million ‘wheat based approach’ number.

    I would say that this suggests that different approaches (that used in the original article and the wikipedia article) produce similar numbers to the numbers I calculated with the Wikipedia numbers of Ancient Roman GDP, but I don’t know how this GDP was calculated by the various economic historian cited. It’s possible I’m more or less just showing how the $15 billion and the $6.49 million numbers were originally derived. I don’t know how the $60-160 million per year purchasing power comparison numbers were calculated.

  4. I’m sure that Adam could make a more informed critique, but that’s one of the worst attempts at purchasing power comparison over time that I’ve ever seen. The opening of the man’s wiki article agrees:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Appuleius_Diocles

    Other more realistic numbers cited in the article were a net worth of either $6.49 million or $60 million – $160 million. Even if you accepted the bonkers methodology of comparing the payroll of the US military to the payroll of the legions, the US military has a lot more active members than the Roman army had legionaries, or even legionaries plus auxiliaries. Somewhere between 10x and 5x as many, giving an estimate of $1.5 – $3 billion.

    It’s also assuming Diocles’ total lifetime earnings are the wealth he retired with. Given the spending habits of a lot of today’s professional athletes, that’s pretty dubious. I have no idea what income taxes were like on equestrians (that’s the term for the class, not a profession), but it’s safe to assume a fair amount went to the Imperial treasury.

    Lastly, this figure of 35,863,120 sesterces is apparently from a monument erected by Diocles’ fans celebrating his retirement. Classical authors are… not known for being reliable when it comes to math. The respectable Tacitus claimed his father-in-law fought an army of 30,000 in Scotland… which would be impressive given that Early Modern Scotland could only field an army of ~30,000 -40,000 in the 1513 Battle of Flodden, and the Scottish population would have been MUCH lower in the 1st century CE. The most likely conjecture is that the 35,863,120 sesterces figure is similarly a load of freaking horseshit.

    1. The ancient historians didn’t seem to be great at math. Herodotus claimed that the invading Persian Army numbered more than two million in the second invasion (with about as many support personnel). Modern scholars generally conclude that Herodotus is in error by a multiple of ten, although some have suggested that even dividing by ten produces an unrealistically large number based on supply considerations and the limited supply of fresh water available.

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