Tiger Woods and David Beckham Among Top Athletes in Forbes’ Celebrity 100

Whoever said sports don’t pay clearly didn’t spend some time perusing Forbes’ Celebrity 100. To be honest, we’re not even sure if anyone ever said that, but if they did, boy, would we have a bone to pick with them.

Tiger Woods (2—and still holding his own at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines) and David Beckham (5) are ranked the highest among athletes on the list of the rich, powerful, endorsement-laden, and—when we’re lucky, blog foddah pipeline—group of famous faces on the annual list. Twenty of the top 100 were athletes representing golf, soccer, basketball, auto racing, and tennis.

Even though we aren’t Maria Sharapova fans, her #61 rank on Forbes’ Celebrity 100 allows us to give the people what they want, i.e., pictures of hot chicks on the blog.

Image: Used with permission of www.splashnewsonline.com  

Other athletes who made the cut: LeBron James (16), Michael Jordan (18), Kobe Bryant (19), Phil Mickelson (20—a notch above Madonna. Take that, Madge!), Roger Federer (23—yay! But were still bummed about the French Open loss), Stray-Rod . . . oops, we mean A-Rod (24), Kimi Raikkonen (26), Jeff Gordon (37), Ronaldinho (38), Shaquille O’Neal (39), Fernando Alonso (43), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (52), Kevin Garnett, soon-to-be owner of an NBA Championship Ring (56), Maria Sharapova (61—see above, in case you happen to miss the photo of a 6’3″ blonde on this page), Serena Williams (69), Justine Henin (81, and we wish she hadn’t retired), Lorena Ochoa (88), and Annika Sorenstam (93).