"Does it count?" - Joe Rogan isn't convinced by Conor McGregor topping Forbes' list of highest-paid athletes
Conor McGregor beat Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo to top Forbes' most recent list of highest-paid athletes.
But Joe Rogan isn't completely convinced McGregor should have topped the list.
According to the UFC color commentator, the Irishman's position at the top doesn't count because a major part of his earnings came from his whiskey sale and ventures outside the octagon.
Never one to mince his words, Joe Rogan recently said in an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience:
"Yeah, but does it count? Because Conor's highest paid because he made a bunch of money off of whiskey. Well, I mean, it's kind of he's the highest paid athlete."
Catch Rogan's comments in the video below:
Despite a near shutdown of sports in 2020 due to the pandemic, the ten highest-paid athletes in the world took home combined pretax gross earnings of $1.05 billion.
The combined haul is 28% more than last year's and falls just a few million short of the $1.06 billion record set in 2018. For the first time in his life, Conor McGregor topped the list, having made $180 million across the period.
While Conor McGregor is probably the highest-paid fighter in the world, most of his earnings came from a lucrative deal outside the octagon.
McGregor recently sold his majority stake in whiskey brand Proper No. Twelve to Proximo Spirits for $150 million.
Adding in his endorsements, McGregor made $158 million from his ventures outside the octagon and $22 million from his fights.
Conor McGregor is proud of his entrepreneurship skills
While Joe Rogan doubts Conor McGregor's position at the top, the Irishman himself has no qualms about it.
According to the former two-division UFC champion, topping Forbes' list of highest paid athletes was a laurel coming his way inevitably. Informed of the news, Conor McGregor told Forbes:
"It’s been a long time coming, and I’ve been waiting on the call, to be honest. I could have taken the easy money, I could have taken the quick buck. I took the risk. I put my heart and soul into it, and it’s paid off. I know a lot of these athletes on this list, you know, they make so much from their sport, so much from their endorsements. I’m probably the complete opposite. I’m an outlier. I’m a disrupter."