u/psycho-like-norman60

Someone like LeBron James will generate hundreds of millions in revenue per annum, vastly more than his $52.6 million contract. We can directly do the arithmetic and see that he brings in vastly more than he costs, if anything he's underpaid relative to his value.

When Ronaldo moved to Juventus he generated $60 million in jersey sales just on the first day (more than half what the transfer cost Juventus). Juventus's commercial revenue went from €143 mn euros in 17/18 (year before the Ronaldo signing) to €175 mn euros in 19/20. The value of the jersey sponsorship went from €17 mn to €45 mn, and the value of the kit sponsorship went from €23 mn to €51 mn.

I also can't think of a similar job where we can directly quantify that someone brings in so much more than they cost the organisation.

I haven't watched the second one in ages so can't remember how good Depp was tbh

If there's an obvious answer I'm not thinking of, forgive my buffoonery

I say this because it's nearly impossible to do it with any degree of accuracy. Take someone like Diego Maradona, he started playing in the 70s. So just to start, a sizable share of the population will never have watched his career. And if someone now wanted to compare Maradona's career to say, Ronaldo, they'd have to compare fragments of YouTube clips versus much more footage of Ronaldo. The only one to one comparison is in statistics. But A) statistics are only part of it and B) statistics are affected by team quality, so determined the quality of Maradona's squads around him throughout his career also means relying on fragmentary footage.

So I think anyone who thinks they have an answer on the greatest footballer ever with any degree of confidence is talking nonsense.