Sports Championships Where the Loser Makes Pretty Good Money
No one likes to lose. How many times have you heard the phrase, "The ring's the thing," when talking about motivation in sports?
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And as the late, great NASCAR racer Dale Earnhardt once said, "Second place is just first loser."
However, a runner-up finish can still be quite profitable. GOBankingRates compiled the sports championships where the losers make the most money, and it's clear that international soccer treats its second-place finishers the best.
Read on to see how these different sports rank in paying second place.
Last updated: July 12, 2021
17. Indianapolis 500
Year of most recent prize estimate: 2020
First-place winner: Takuma Sato
Winner prize money: $1.37 million
Runner-up: Scott Dixon
Runner-up prize money: $500,000
With no fans allowed to attend the race in 2020, the overall race purse was cut in half, from $15 million to $7.5 million.
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16. Kentucky Derby
Year of most recent prize estimate: 2020
First-place winner: Authentic
Winner prize money: $1.86 million
Runner-up: Tiz the Law
Runner-up prize money: $600,000
The Derby has the biggest payout of the three Triple Crown races with a purse of $3 million total. The Preakness pays out $1.5 million total, and the Belmont Stakes purse is $1 million.
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15. Masters Tournament
Year of most recent prize estimate: 2020
First-place winner: Dustin Johnson
Winner prize money: $2.07 million
Runner-up: Cameron Smith, Sungjae Im
Runner-up prize money: $1.24 million
Among the men's four major golf tournaments, The Masters' total purse of $11.5 million ranks second behind the U.S. Open's of $12.5 million.
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14. US Open (Golf)
Year of most recent prize estimate: 2020
First-place winner: Bryson DeChambeau
Winner prize money: $2.25 million
Runner-up: Matthew Wold
Runner-up prize money: $1.35 million
The top five finishers split $5.5 million of the overall $12.5 million purse.
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13. US Open (Tennis)
Year of most recent prize estimate: 2020
First-place winners: Dominic Thiem (men's); Naomi Osaka (women's)
Winner prize money: $3 million
Runner-up: Alexander Zvereve (men's); Victoria Azarenka (women's)
Runner-up prize money: $1.5 million
Prize money dropped for the 2020 U.S. Open, from $57 million to $53.4 million. The runners-up's shares dropped $400,000 to $1.5 million.
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12. Daytona 500
Year of most recent prize estimate: 2020
First-place winner: Denny Hamlin
Winner prize money: $2.06 million
Runner-up: Ryan Blaney
Runner-up prize money: $1.51 million
The overall $23.6 million purse was the highest in U.S. motorsports history, NASCAR announced.
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11. Wimbledon
Year of most recent prize estimate: 2019
First-place winner: Novak Djokovic (men's); Simona Halep (women's)
Winner prize money: $3.27 million
Runner-up: Roger Federer (men's); Serena Williams (women's)
Runner-up prize money: $1.63 million
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Wimbledon tournament was canceled. Wimbledon has paid the men's and women's winners the same amount since 2007 when it became the last Grand Slam tournament to offer the same amounts.
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10. Cricket World Cup
Year of most recent prize estimate: 2019
First-place winner: England
Winner prize money: $4 million
Runner-up: New Zealand
Runner-up prize money (in millions): $2 million
The prize money for the winners was the highest in the history of the 10-team tournament.
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9. NBA Finals
Year of most recent prize estimate: 2019
First-place winner: Toronto Raptors
Winner prize money: $3.54 million
Runner-up: Golden State Warriors
Runner-up prize money: $2.35 million
The NBA creates a "player pool" that splits money among every team in the postseason. CNBC estimated that each Raptors player earned about $240,000.
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8. Women's World Cup
Year of most recent prize estimate: 2019
First-place winner: USA
Winner prize money: $4.9 million
Runner-up: Netherlands
Runner-up prize money: $2.60 million
The Women's World Cup winners pocket a nice check, but that total is only 7.5% of what the men's World Cup pays out.
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7. Stanley Cup
Year of most recent prize estimate: 2019
First-place winner: St. Louis Blues
Winner prize money: $4.9 million
Runner-up: Boston Bruins
Runner-up prize money: $3 million
The NHL doubled its overall playoff bonus pool from $16 to $32 million in 2020, meaning that players on the winning Stanley Cup teams earned $240,000 each.
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6. Super Bowl
Year of most recent prize estimate: 2021
First-place winner: Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Winner prize money: $6.89 million
Runner-up: Kansas City Chiefs
Runner-up prize money: $3.45 million
Each player on the Chiefs received $62,000 for reaching the Super Bowl.
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5. The International
Year of most recent prize estimate: 2019
First-place winner: OG
Winner prize money: $15.62 million
Runner-up: Team Liquid
Runner-up prize money: $4.46 million
The International 2020's prize pool of $34 million was the largest in eSports history.
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4. World Series of Poker
Year of most recent prize estimate: 2019
First-place winner: Hossein Ensan
Winner prize money: $10 million
Runner-up: Sario Sammartino
Runner-up prize money: $6 million
Ensan, the overall winner, also received custom diamond-encrusted bracelet.
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3. UEFA Champions League
Year of most recent prize estimate: 2020
First-place winner: Bayern Munich
Winner prize money: $22.5 million
Runner-up: Paris Saint-Germain
Runner-up prize money: $18 million
The Champions League pays out a staggering $354 million to the 32 contending teams. If a club were to win every game it played, it could pocket $98 million.
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2. World Series
Year of most recent prize estimate: 2020
First-place winner: Los Angeles Dodgers
Winner prize money: $35 million
Runner-up: Tampa Bay Rays
Runner-up prize money: $24 million
Each player on the Rays receives roughly $249,000 for their runner-up finish.
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1. Men's World Cup
Year of most recent prize estimate: 2018
First-place winner: France
Winner prize money: $38 million
Runner-up: Croatia
Runner-up prize money: $28 million
The men's World Cup is the pinnacle of sports event payouts, with the runner-up making as much as the winners in nearly every other sport on this list.
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Methodology: To find the sports championships where the losers make the most money, GOBankingRates first referenced Stacker's ranking of the same name and Bleacher Report's "10 Places to Win the Biggest Paydays in Sports" for inspiration. Then, GOBankingRates used league sites and contemporary news coverage to find the tournament year of the most recent available prize purse estimate, the name of the tournament winner, the first place prize amount, the name of the runner-up and the second-place prize amount for each tournament. Estimates are only for the tournament, not the cumulative postseason. Sources are linked in the table to the left. All data was collected on and up to date as of March 16, 2021.
This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Sports Championships Where the Loser Makes Pretty Good Money