Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi earn an eye-watering £31million a year in salary combined but that figure has been trumped by a certain US TV star – Judge Judy.[i][/i]
Judge Judy earns more than Real Madrid superstar Cristiano Ronaldo and Barcelona’s Lionel Messi combined with her new TV salary. The 72-year-old has just become the world’s best-paid television star by signing a £127m deal, which runs until 2020 and works out at £32m a year.

Judy Sheindlin has been dispensing justice for CBS since 1996 and brings an average of 10.3m weekly viewers to her show. She also manages to squeeze all her filming into one day, so clearly does not like her time being wasted.
Website Sportsgrid came up with the idea to rank where the judge would rank in the top earners of sport, excluding endorsement deals and prize money, and the results make interesting reading.

1 Sebastian Vettel, F1 – £54m a year
2. Floyd Mayweather, Boxing, £49m a year
3. Kimi Räikkönen, F1 35.6m a year
4. Judge Judy, TV £32m a year
5. Clayton Kershaw, Baseball, £21m a year

While Messi (£16m salary a year) and Ronaldo (£15m a year) make the majority of their money from endorsement deals, Judge Judy’s new deal, which only sees her work one day a week, means she has to put a lot less work in for her money.
Impressive work from the veteran judge.