Where earnings figures come from: every register this site uses
Every figure on this site comes from one of about a dozen registers, and the differences between them explain almost every disagreement in earnings reporting. Some are maintained by the body that made the payment. Some are lodged with a public authority for an unrelated reason. Some are simply announcements. This page maps them, states what each one covers, and marks the point at which each stops.
Registers maintained by the payer
The strongest ordinary case. A tour, a federation or a tournament pays prize money and keeps the record of what it paid: tennis career prize money on a player record, golf official money per event, equestrian prize money per rider per competition in the world federation’s database. No intermediary sits between the payment and the published figure.
Two limits apply everywhere in this class. The register covers only what that body paid, so appearance fees, endorsements and earnings on other circuits are outside it. And a running total for an active competitor changes constantly, which is why pages here print closed totals and anchor live ones on a fixed dated payment.
Documents filed with a public authority
Sometimes a payment becomes public because a body with statutory powers is involved for a reason of its own. A US state athletic commission licenses a bout and holds the purse in its file. A state university employs a coach, so the contract is a government record and releasable under open-records law. A listed company reports to its regulator, so an acquisition price becomes public even though the seller published nothing. Form 4 filings are the same mechanism at the level of one person’s holding.
This class is the strongest of all, because a filing is made under obligation and carries consequences if it is wrong. It is also the narrowest: it appears only where the law happens to require a filing, which has nothing to do with the size of the payment. Congressional financial disclosures are the largest annual example.
| Register | What it publishes | Where it stops |
|---|---|---|
| Tennis tours | Career prize money per player | No appearance fees, no endorsements |
| Golf tour money list | Official money per event and season | Other circuits are outside it |
| Equestrian world federation | Prize money per rider per competition | No cost side, and costs are heavy |
| NBA / WNBA / NFL agreements | Exact scales: maxima, minima, rookie tables | Negotiated contracts are announced only |
| Cricket boards | Category bands for drafts and central contracts | Where inside the band a deal sat |
| US athletic commissions | The purse for a bout licensed in that state | Non-disclosing states; the rest of the world |
| Motorsport series | Race purse per entry, historically | One series stopped publishing after 2015 |
| Physique promoters | Prize breakdown per placing | Smaller shows published none |
| Public universities | Coaching contracts, itemised, under open records | Private institutions |
| Company filings | Revenue, assets, disclosed considerations | Private companies with no priced event |
| Congressional disclosure | Assets and liabilities in brackets, annually | Anyone not required to file |
| SEC Form 4 | Insider trades in company stock, exactly | Every other asset |
Announcements, and how to use them without over-trusting them
A club announcing a transfer fee, a promoter publishing a prize breakdown, a team stating contract terms: all announcements, none filed. They are usually accurate, because the announcing party has a reason to be believed and a reputation at stake, and they are not auditable.
The practical rule used here is to quote them with the announcer named and the date attached, and never to blend them into a total alongside filed figures. A total that mixes tiers takes the credibility of the strongest input and lends it to the weakest.
The two edges where errors concentrate
The first edge is who received the money. A motorsport purse is paid to the entrant, not the driver. A transfer fee is paid to a club, not the player. A company’s revenue belongs to the company, not its founder. Every one of those is routinely reported as personal income, and each error can be off by any factor.
The second edge is gross against net. Every published figure in this map is gross. Tax across multiple jurisdictions, agent commission, professional costs and, in physique and equestrian sport, an enormous expense base all sit between the published number and anything a person keeps.
Those two distinctions, applied consistently, remove most of the difference between a documented earnings page and an estimate. The verification page turns them into a checklist.
Questions readers send
Which register is the strongest?
A document filed with a public authority under obligation: a corporate filing, a state university contract, a commission bout file. Filings are audited or certified and carry consequences if they are wrong.
Why not combine registers into one career total?
Because a total that mixes filed figures with announcements and gaps takes the credibility of its strongest input and lends it to its weakest, and the seam is invisible in the result.
What are the two most common errors in earnings reporting?
Attributing to a person money that was paid to a team, club or company; and treating a gross published figure as though it were what somebody kept.
Which registers can be reached from a page here?
Where the publishing body maintains a public search, the page links straight to it: the House Clerk’s disclosure search, the SEC’s EDGAR search, a company’s own report archive, a tour’s player record. Where the register exists only as a file held by the body — a state commission’s bout file, a board’s sanctioning record, the Senate’s search behind its access agreement — the page names the body and how to ask, because a link that does not resolve is worse than an instruction that does.
The documents this page rests on
- 01 Tours, leagues, federations and public authorities, Each register’s existence, form and coverage Each subject page names the specific register, section and year it used