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Who was the highest paid athlete in history? · Ridiculous History

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Ye confession. I believe that I may have the perfect
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: socks for today's episode. There's some socks that a friend
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  Speaker 1: of mine got me from his travels in Japan, and
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  Speaker 1: they have separations in the in the fabric for the toes.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: I feel much more agile than I would be wearing
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: just normal socks bands. So they're like Ninja socks. Yeah,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: that's that's the way to put up. Yeah, it's like
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: the division for the sandals. Picture every Western film you've
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  Speaker 1: seen in the nineties or something that featured ninja. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: so I've got the I've got these. Uh, it's weird.
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  Speaker 1: I took my shoes off and showed showed you and
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  Speaker 1: our super producer, Casey Pegram these socks before we hit
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  Speaker 1: the air. I feel somewhat more athletic in these. Well, Ben,
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  Speaker 1: we are in a tiny shipping container type box. Did
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  Speaker 1: you put your shoes back on? Yeah? Yeah, you can
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: tell Noll, you can tell that I put my shoes
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  Speaker 1: back on. I think I think being in a small
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  Speaker 1: area with your shoes off like that in a work environment,
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  Speaker 1: it would be kind of rude. No, it's poor. It's
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  Speaker 1: poor podcast etiquette, to be sure. Yeah, like loudly eating
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  Speaker 1: or something. Gosh, Ben, are you being passive aggressive to me?
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I'm a loud on Mike eating. No, you're not eating something.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not right now. But you know, I've been known
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  Speaker 1: to have a snack occasionally, but I try to do
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  Speaker 1: it off my contract. You usually do it when we're
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  Speaker 1: not on air. That's true. That's a good point. Although
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  Speaker 1: I gotta say sometimes I find it charming when I
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  Speaker 1: when a podcaster has a little snack on there. I
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  Speaker 1: think it's a personal choice, personal preference. So back to
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  Speaker 1: this this idea. I am not a professional as fleet
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and you and I know each other pretty well. You
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: are currently not a professional athlete. I'm barely a professional anything.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: We're barely professional podcasters right. Actually updated my my Instagram
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: bio to be a semi pro podcast geek. So that's
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: that's what I consider my safe semi pro. There you go.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: We do know that the world of professional athleticism is
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: obviously an enormous, enormous deal. It's a huge industry. Billions
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: and billions of dollars are spent every year, and billions
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: of dollars are generated every year through various athletic endeavors
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: around the world, and for Peak Behind the Curtain is
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: the three of us record today's episode of Ridiculous History.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: We are on the verge of two very big and
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: unusual things for our fair metropolis of Atlanta. The first
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: is a definite that's the super Bowl, and the second
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: is possible storm, a snowstorm. So we're looking for the
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the snowpocalypse super Bowl traffic jam coming our way pretty soon, right,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: which became a Facebook event that a lot of people
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: in town checked in on. Right, did you do that?
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Not yet? So we started thinking about the world of
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: professional athletes, and we kicked around the idea of maybe
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: doing the history of Super Bowls, which could be a
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: cool notion for a future episode. But we also asked
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: ourselves a surprisingly fascinating question, who was the highest paid athlete,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: not not just this year, but in history. Yeah, it's true,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: And it turns out that somebody else, uh, someone with
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: a little bit more of a historical pedigree than we have,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: a guy by the name of Dr Peter struck who's
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: professor at the University of Pennsylvania UM. In an article
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: he wrote for Laham's Quarterly, struck Um went into great
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  Speaker 1: detail about his discovery that turns out, the highest paid
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: athlete of all time was not like a footballer or
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: or a basketball or wasn't you know some some football player.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Wasn't Michael Jordan's, wasn't Joe Montana. Joe Montana. That's a
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: football players remember him from from video games, mainly I
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: like he had. He was known for his effective but
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: just very ugly throws. But he had a big old arm, right,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: He was like an armed guy. Most of them do.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: They are very few. Peyton Manning, he's a he's a
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  Speaker 1: good He's worth a lot of Jakins. And then the refrigerator.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: But no, none of those guys. Turns out it was
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: a I'm gonna say, charioteer. Yeah, a charioteer named gas
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Apollius Diocles. Well done. Well, we'll probably shift around in
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: that in that pronunciation times. Uh. This is a very
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: very interesting guy. He was from an area of what
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: is now modern day Spain in Portugal. He was most
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: likely illiterate, but man, his chariot game was on fire.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: So there's an inscription set up in the city of
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  Speaker 1: Rome that was originally created in one forty six CE
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: or a d however you prefer, uh, And it tells
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  Speaker 1: us exactly how much this charioteer from the province of
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Lusitania earned during his oh what was it an old
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  Speaker 1: twenty four years as an athlete, as a charioteer. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: and let's not sweep under the rug the fact that
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: that is an awful long time to survive in such
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  Speaker 1: a intense and brutal and strenuous and dangerous for even spectators,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: let alone the people right in the thick of it
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  Speaker 1: profession I mean, we're talking like these chariots being drawn
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  Speaker 1: by up to ten horses. He had like the reins
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: tied around his waist, you know, and I can imagine
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  Speaker 1: a mishap, you know, tearing him him from limb. But
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: he was able to maintain this career twenty four years,
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  Speaker 1: which is, oh gosh, at least four times the length
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I would say of an average you know, football or
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: basketball player's career. Yeah, even in these our modern days,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: ongoing studies show us that being an athlete can be
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  Speaker 1: tremendously damaging to the body and punishing to the mind,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: especially when you get in the world of boxing and
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: US football, which you know, leave the door wide open
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: to concussions, you know. And I just kind of pulled
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: that out of my ear. But it's about apparently, according
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: to Business Insider, the average span of an NBA basketball
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: player is about four point eight years, right, right, It's true.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: It's uh. Now, this can be longer for some some individuals,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: and of course it can be longer in some sports, right, uh,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: some Olympic sports, you may have a longer lifespan. But
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: professionally speak king again, we are at our best only humans.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: So this guy is doing a tremendous job. Back in
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  Speaker 1: his time as as a chariot's here roll? What what
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: exactly would his would his sport have been comprised? Well,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: like I said, he would have been piloting a I
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: guess a two wheeled chariot, right, how many wheels around
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: to chariot? Is it four? I feel I pictured it
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: as being reared back on two wheels, two wheels with
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  Speaker 1: a team of horses, like said, up to ten reins
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  Speaker 1: used to kind of encourage them to go faster or
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: slow up. And like I said, he actually had them
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: tied around his body so he could use his whole
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: body to kind of control the horses. And he was
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: racing specifically and dirty tricks and in chariot racing. I
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: guess I think of maybe cartoon examples of chariot racing
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: where all of a sudden, like one of the wheels
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  Speaker 1: would have like a blade on it or something like that,
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  Speaker 1: and they'd kind of go up close to the other
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  Speaker 1: participants and to that blade to kind of grind up
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: at their wheel. And I think people would stop at
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  Speaker 1: nothing to uh to you know, defeat the competition, no
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  Speaker 1: matter what it took, right. Yeah, And chariot racing was
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  Speaker 1: a huge, huge deal. It was bigger than NASCAR is now.
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  Speaker 1: The classes would be divided primarily by how many horses
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  Speaker 1: were pulling the chariot. A two horse team, a four
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  Speaker 1: horse team, a six horse team. The earliest account of
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  Speaker 1: a chariot race occurs in Homer's description of the funeral
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: of Patrick Less. These these races were one of the
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  Speaker 1: big ticket items of the ancient Olympic Games. They would
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: happen during religious festivals. Essentially, civilizations at the time view
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: chariot races as a really cool thing to add to
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: almost any public event, you know what I mean. It's
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: like a a a citywide festival or contest. And normally
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  Speaker 1: these chariot races would proceed thusly, there would be four
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  Speaker 1: to six different chariots they would compete in a single race,
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  Speaker 1: and the race would usually be around seven laps around
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  Speaker 1: what was called the circus, the circus maximus. These chariots,
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  Speaker 1: we should emphasize, were very light affairs, because you know,
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  Speaker 1: you wanted to get the maximum power in the minimum
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  Speaker 1: amount of weight. This also means that they were super fragile.
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  Speaker 1: So we're a collision to occur. You were up the
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  Speaker 1: wrong creek without a paddle. Yeah. And to that end,
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  Speaker 1: most of the folks that piloted these chariots um only
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  Speaker 1: lived till about twenty four years old, whereas Diocles retired
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  Speaker 1: which is very unusual at the ripe old age of
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  Speaker 1: forty two, at which point he was worth a whole
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  Speaker 1: lot of money. Doctor Struck found that diocles Is total
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  Speaker 1: earnings would have equated to roughly fifteen billion dollars in
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  Speaker 1: modern terms. Fifteen billion with the B. You can also
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: see another great write up of this in History Collection.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: There's an article by Alexander Mettings that we would recommend this.
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  Speaker 1: This is strange because these were all net earnings to
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  Speaker 1: the charioteer didn't have to pay promoters didn't have to
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  Speaker 1: pay you know, a marketing team or support is I
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  Speaker 1: don't know, entourage or shell out cash for sponsorship. He
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  Speaker 1: probably had it pretty good. You know, what would he
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  Speaker 1: have what would he have done personally with that? And
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  Speaker 1: how did professor Struck figure out this number? On that
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  Speaker 1: inscription ban that you mentioned, It has his his earnings
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  Speaker 1: in the currency of the time, which is sastercy, and
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  Speaker 1: that would have been thirty five million, eight hundred and
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  Speaker 1: sixty three thousand, one hundred and twenty And Struck figured
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: out that for the time that would have been enough
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: to buy grain to fee the entirety of Rome for
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: one year um and also was about five times higher
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  Speaker 1: a salary than any of the highest paid officials in
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  Speaker 1: the land and also could have paid for every single
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Roman soldier for a fifth of a year. And that
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: was when Rome was at its peak in terms of
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  Speaker 1: its military MTE. Yeah, running from Scotland all the way
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: in the far north, Egypt in the south, Spain in
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  Speaker 1: the western, the Euphrates in the east. He clearly busted
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: his hump for this money. And to compare him to
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: let's say the highest paid governmental authorities in two months,
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  Speaker 1: he would earn what Rome's highest paid provincial governor could
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  Speaker 1: expect to earn in one year, and there was a
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: great amount of risk with this. We mentioned the horses
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: reins being tied physically to the athlete. When those fragile
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: vehicles collided with something, it often resulted in the death
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  Speaker 1: or serious injury of a charioteer because the horses kept going.
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  Speaker 1: That's right, there's a lot of a lot of trampling
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: um and ben we were trying to get to the
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  Speaker 1: conversion method. We always plug numbers into our handy dandy
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: inflation calculator here on ridiculous history. But those um figures
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: that I mentioned earlier were on are on the Stone inscription,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: listening the idea of being able to bankroll the Roman
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: army for a fifth of a year. So Struck was
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: able to extrapolate a modern estimate UM based on what
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: it would cost to pay for our military UM. So
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: it's obviously not a perfect one to one, but would
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: have been a pretty good educated guess. Absolutely, And oh
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: you know what we should do. We should read the
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: actual inscription. So here it goes. In the English translation,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: it begins with gayas Appolus Diocles charioteer of the Red Stable,
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  Speaker 1: Hallusitanian Spaniard by birth age forty two years, seven months,
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  Speaker 1: twenty three days, and the monument says he raced four
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  Speaker 1: horse chariots for twenty four years, so we get some
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: valuable numbers there. We also know that given his fame,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: there was a snowball effect. He started turning down races,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It had to be worth
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: his time, so he would race in the most high end,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: high profile races that had the most potential to win
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: a large amount of money. He started in this, according
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: to the inscription, in four thousand, two hundred fifty seven
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  Speaker 1: races he won one thousand, four hundred sixty three times,
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  Speaker 1: and the inscription says that translates to him winning ninety
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: two major prizes. Of these, thirty two were of thirty
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  Speaker 1: thousand sisters, three of them with six worse teams, two
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: in races with six worse chariots, one with a seven
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: horse chariot. Uh he tied with because they had these
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: different factions. Right, he was a red stable, right, and
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: he tied a Blue stable ten times, a Green stable
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: ninety one. And the the this inscription, the thing that's
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: invaluable about it is that it maps out his stats
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: the same way that a baseball card, back when those
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: were a big deal. A baseball card would map out
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: the stats of your favorite, uh, your favorite baseball player. Man,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: would these have been like alongside gladiator events or would
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: those have been like two different things, because I feel
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: like this would have almost been like a like the
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: gladiator thing might have been the main event. This might
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: have been like a side event, or were they completely separate.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I'm just wondering, you know, there's that's a good question. Well,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: there's probably a situation again wherein there were large public
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: events that involved this stuff, and they were definitely chariots
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: in gladiatorial combat. Its right, Sometimes there could have been
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: probably gladiator matches on chariot where they're like coming at
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: each other, swinging weapons as they pass. Right. So let's
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: let's go back for a second to the earlier comparison
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: in the world of animation and cartoons, right, how exaggerated
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: or how accurate was this depiction of chariot racing. It
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: turns out that it's not completely off base. It's not
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: completely cartoonish or made up, because these knives on the
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: wheels were a real thing, and the charioteers would attempt
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: to ram their arrivals into the media at the center
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: of the track called the spin at, and then they
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: would come crashing into these hairpin turns. They also I
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: thought you would find just the pure spectacle of this fascinating.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: During races, it was very common for the three chariots
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: representing each faction to team up with one another to
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: bring down a very unpopular rival or a very strong
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: one like diac les, and bring down in this sense
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: means literally grind them into the dust. This violence is
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: part of why chariot races were so incredibly popular. Like,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: think about how many people love the Super Bowl. I'm
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: sure there's an income brackett to get a ticket because
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: those things are thousands of dollars, But millions and millions
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: of people in this country watch the Super Bowl and
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: pull for a team they love, regardless of, you know,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: their individual demographic. Chariot races were the same way. But
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: before television, that's true, and you can also probably expect
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: to see someone get really horribly injured, um, you know,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: and and ideally that's less the case with modern American football.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Or they're trying to pase that out and make it
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: less of an attraction. But I still think that's largely
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: what people not not not to like taste blood. But
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: you it's all about the steaks, right. What's the point
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: of like being all in with this if there aren't
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: like real steaks. You don't feel like these people have
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: something to lose beyond just like glory or being shamed
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: or whatever. That's a great that's a great question. I
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: wrote a thing a long time ago that wasn't wasn't
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: part of how stuff works, about the social role of
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: sports as a substitute for actual warfare. It hits all
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: the same notes of tribalism, you know what I mean,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: and identifying with something larger than oneself. This this is
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: making me a miss car stuff. No, because we have
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: to mention these chariot races were also dangerous for the
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: audience because the rivalry went beyond lighthearted competition. It became
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: as high risk as the races themselves. Think of soccer hooligans. Okay,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: there were chariot hooligans, charioteer hooligans. One guy learned about
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: the death of one of the best charioteers in the
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Red faction, and he threw himself on the funeral pyre
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: to be burned alongside his sports idol. Dude, that's like that,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: like sports as a stand in for not only warfare,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: but like religion. Yeah, yeah, good call. In sixty nine
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: a d or c e. The Emperor Vitellius had some
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: commoners executed because they talked trash about the Blue Faction
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: and the emperor loved them. He was personally offended, so
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: he had them put to death. And it also reminds
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: me of sort of the early days of auto racing,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: like the Laman. Remember we did an episode on that
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: where it was absolutely very dangerous just physically to be
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: a spectator because if there was a fiery crash, bits
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: of flaming debris could go shooting out into the crowd,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: potentially injuring or even killing people. There were several accounts
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: of folks being killed at those races, and such as
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: the case for these chariot races of you know, if
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: you'd have the potential for people in the stands getting
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: hit by you know, pieces of flying off of the chariots.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Twenty four hour Lament. Yeah, we have a ridiculous history
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: on that. We have something about the history of the
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: race in a series on car stuff too, if you
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: if you'd like to learn more about the oh my gosh,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: the utter, utterly horrific accidents that happened in those races.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: We have to say, you know, we we have to
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: speculate a bit on the psychology of the audience, because
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: maybe that was part of the appeal to be right
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: down there in the thick of it, as close to
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: the chariots as possible, despite the risk, or to have
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: this social identification that was so strong that you would
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: want to physically harm someone because they were a Green
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: and you were a Blue. It's strange too because Diacles
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: was chasing glory along with money, but he was definitely
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: chasing the glory, chasing the fame because he switched his factions.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: He began his career as a White and then he
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: moved over to the Greens because of all the teams,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: the Greens and the Blues were the most successful in
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: the most popular right and think of them like the
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: New England Patriots if you're a football fan. But then
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: he made a switch, He made a switch rue a
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: plot twist, you see, he transferred to the less popular
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Red faction and this would have made pretty good financial
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: sense to him, maybe have given him some more time
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: to shine. You would have been a bigger fish in
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: a smaller pond. Because you see Diocles when he was
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: on the Green team, he was just one of many
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: very popular charioteers. You know, he was possibly a footnote
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: in history, but he could become a main character in
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: history if he went with the reds. And that's what
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: he did. And despite what you might assume, he was
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: not the he was not the charioteer who won the
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: most racist. He just got the most money. As Professor
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Robert B. Keybreak points out, in the career of Diocles
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: room and charioteer, his victories paled in comparison to those
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: of other charity tears, such as Scorpus, who had two thousand,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: forty eight victories, or Pompeius, most closest, who had three thousand,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: five hundred and fifty nine victories. But he made it.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: He won the game right he retired, as we said,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: he lived a pretty sedate, fun life after that. You know.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: From so he was born approximately one oh four CE,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: and he passed away some time after one forty six CE.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: But I believe his death was relatively peaceful or unremarked upon, Yeah,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: especially given the profession. Right, so, um, by that point
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: he I think it was just kind of unusual for
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: anyone in such a violent, inherently violent line of work
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: to be able to retire. And even though he didn't
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: win the most maybe that's because he he was looking
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: he was playing the long game right then. I mean,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: he was like protecting himself and maybe not being quite
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: as reckless, but he certainly knew how to show off
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: and have some flourishes. He had his own signature style
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: almost like you know, tiger style or like something out
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: of like a street fighter game, and it was called
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: the strong final dash. Oh nice, because he he could
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: just pull out all the stops in the end. That
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: maybe means he would bide his time a little bit
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: and stay out of harm's way and like protect himself,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: but then at the end he would like come up
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: ahead of the pack. But yeah, it's crazy, man, that
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: he was able to just relaxingly drift away as an
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: old man of what was he like fifty years old.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: He passed away on his estate in the Italian countryside
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: near modern day Palestrina, and he lived out the remainder
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: of his days in a quiet life. Live in the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: quiet life. You know, he had a son and a
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: daughter who later erected a memorial to him at the site,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: and there he remains in history as the highest paid
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: athlete of all time. But you know what, my spiky
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: sense is telling me that several of our fellow ridiculous
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: historians are having a come on you guys moment when
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: you say, Okay, so diakles was was really balling back
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: in the days of ancient Rome, But who is the
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: world's highest paid athlete? Now? It turns out we do
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: have the answer, or an answer, because some of this
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: depends on how you calculate it. Casey, help us out
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: with a drum roll here, if you would be so kind.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: The highest paid athlete in the modern world is it's
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: it's Floyd Mayweather, who's um, non American boxer, problematic figure.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: He's gotten some trouble with the law, but he's managed
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: to exceed the total of the other of himself and
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: the other two top earning athletes in the world, who
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: are Lebron James, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo UM and
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: that those three had a combined earning total of two
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: nine million dollars for a season's worth of work. Yeah. Yeah,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: and that also includes like endorsements and partnerships and things
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: like that. And this is reported by Forbes magazine. But um,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Mayweather knocked all of that out of the water with
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: something that happened very recently, right, that's correct, that's correct.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: He earned the top spot. You said a little north
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: of two and fifty mill total. For those other three
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Between June one, seventeen and June one, eighteen, Floyd Mayweather
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: earned two hundred and seventy five million dollars. This comes
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: to us from a Great Money dot Com article by
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Mike Ayers. Here's the kicker. He earned that not across
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the year. Here in that for one night of work
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: when he fought Connor McGregor on August seven, two thousand eighteen. Uh.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Add in his total ten million dollars worth of additional
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: endorsements and we get up two hundred and eight five million.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: This is not his first time topping the list. He
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: has topped at four times in the last seven years.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Of course, that's quite a princely sum. But all the
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: money in the world. UH, still, with our current level
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: of medical technology, will not help you fully recover from
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: uh decades of brutal concussions. So you win some, you
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: lose some. And at this point still according to doctors Struck,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: no one has beaten the record that die at least
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: the charioteer established way back in ancient Rome. Makes you think,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: would you do a chariot race? No, man, the two
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: wheel thing freaks me out. I would totally do it.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: He always it seems like it would be so easy
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: to flip over. Those horses have to counterbalance the you
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: into the whole time, and if you if you lose
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: the slack on the reins, it seems like your whole
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: front end would go into the dirt, or if they've
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: reared up a little too much, you'd flip over backwards.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: It just seems like a fool's Errand to me, sir,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: you know, I I see where you're coming from. To
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: each their own, I think it would be a lot
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: of fun. So if you know where I could I
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: could just ride some chariots around. Please please let me
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: know you can. You can hit us on our Facebook
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: group Ridiculous Historians. You can hit me up on Instagram
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: directly at ben Boland. Surely there's some kind of chariot
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: simulator you could try before jumping full bore into the
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: circus Maximus. I want to go for the gusto man,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: all right, Man, I respect that, I really do. Um.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: You can check me out on Instagram at Embryonic Insider
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: and Ben, I think you had a comic recommendation today.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: I do have a comic recommendation today. I am a
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: fan of a comic series called Britannia, which studies the
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: story of someone named Antonius Axia, the Empire's finest. You'll
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: love this word, folks, did tection er. He is applying
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: scientific scrutiny and rational thought too various mysteries, usually mysteries
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: that he is tasked with solving by the mad Emperor Nero.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: It's a great read. It's highly recommended. Uh let us
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: know if you've read it and what you think about it.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, of course, thank you for checking out
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: today show, and thank you to Casey Pegram. As always,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: thanks to Alex Williams who composed our theme. Thanks to
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: our amazing research associate Gabe Um and thanks to you
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Ben Boland, my friend. Hey, thanks to you Noel Brown.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: I got a question for you. Is this uh, this
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: comic recommendation is sort of an alternate historical account, kind
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: of like um like manifest destiny or one of those
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: kind of deals without all of the tinges of supernatural stuff.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: It's uh, it's a mystery comic and it's it's a winter.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: It's well done. Let us know what you think. Man,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Please be sure and join us for the next episode
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: of ridiculous History. See you next time.