Infographic: Which is the highest paying sports team in the world?
With a staggering average annual pay-per player of $8.1 million, the Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan owned Manchester City is the highest paying sports team in the world.
The Premier League team, which fell upon hard times in the 1990s before a recovery that coincided with a purchase by a group from Abu Dhabi, pays its players an average of approximately $156,000 per week.
That’s higher than any other sports franchise in the world. In fact, football teams do tend to reward their players well as 6 out of the top 10 are football clubs.
New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball (MLB) are the second and third highest paying teams in the world with an average salary cap of $8.0 million and $7.7 million respectively.
While football clubs may have dominated the standings individually, on the collective front it is the NBA which is the highest paying sports league in the world.
The English Premier League, or La Liga might be the more popular leagues in the world, but none of them can offer the salaries that the NBA does. The average NBA player pocketed approximately $4.5 million last year, slightly better than the average salary of $4.2 million for players in India's top cricket league, the Indian Premier League.
Mumbai Indians is the only cricket team to have made it to the top 25 in the list. The Ambani-owned IPL outfit are ranked 24th in the list, having paid its players an average of $4.9 million in the past year.
Here is the complete list of the 25 highest paying sports teams in the world and their respective average salary caps: