It was inevitable, but football is now the highest paying sport in the world.
In Barcelona and Real Madrid, football boasts the two highest paying clubs in world sport - even dumping the USA's richest baseball, basketball and American football franchises.
According to the Global Sports Salaries Survey 2011, the average annual first-team pay at Barcelona was £4.94m, or £95,081 a week. This made the current La Liga champions the world's best paid team by average salary.
Barcelona's bitter rivals Real Madrid came second on the list with their 'Galacticos' earning £4.6m a year on average.
The New York Yankees, now find themselves in third place where average earnings among first-team players were £4.2m a year.
Elsewhere in the top ten of best paid sports teams are basketball franchises the LA Lakers, Orlando Magic and Denver Nuggets, baseball side Boston Red Sox, Inter Milan of Serie A and big-spending Premier League teams Chelsea and Manchester City.
The wide ranging survey was compiled by sportinintelligence.com .
Their findings show the Premier League remains the world's richest football league, with Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal joining Chelsea and Manchester City among the top 30 best paid teams. NBA teams occupy 10 of the top 30 places, MLB baseball teams occupy eight, La Liga, Serie A and the IPL occupy two each, and the Bundesliga one.
"We've know for years that the biggest bucks have been in American basketball and baseball but the rise and rise in wages among the elite of European football continues, closing that gap," says Nick Harris, the editor of sportingintelligence.com and author of the report.
BEST PAID SPORTING TEAMS:
1) Barcelona
2) Real Madrid
3) New York Yankees
4) LA Lakers
5) Orlando Magic
6) Chelsea
7) Inter Milan
8) Boston Red Sox
9) Denver Nuggets
10) Manchester City
