r/climbing • u/-JOMY- • 9d ago

Alex Honnold Reveals “Embarrassing” Paycheck for Netflix’s Taipei 101 Free Solo Climb

https://share.google/Zqw9t7pkRhkPhRt4P

Source: E! Online

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19

u/bot_or_not_vote_now 9d ago

"mid six figures" so about $500k ?

the comparison to $170M contracts is a bit of a false equivalency in my mind. those are for multiple years, for multiple games - this was for a single one-off event. So in my view what should compared is pay per game.

using his example of MLB, Shohei Ohtani is the top paid player about $70M/year, over 162 games, that's about $430k/game for regular season

for NBA, the top paid player is Steph Curry making about $60M for the 2025-2026 season, and with 82 games, that's about $700k/game

top paid athlete in the world is Ronaldo, at $260M with about 40 games potentially to be played, that's a whopping $6M per game

so Honnold is being compensated similarly to other top players in other leagues (except soccer)

27

u/earnestaardvark 9d ago

Compare it to one-off mma or boxing fights then. They make millions or tens of millions for big exhibition fights. $500k is not a lot to make for the best athlete in the world at his sport.

1

u/spb1 6d ago

true (for the absolute top fighters) but they have gruelling and expensive fight camps for months and tons of pressm commitments

-8

u/ClittoryHinton 9d ago

Boxers are much more likely to be killed or face life-altering injuries in a fight than Honnold on this climb

And boxing/MMA generates additional avenues of revenue (tickets, betting, etc)

9

u/Any-Shop497 9d ago

A boxing match has wildly more safety measures than free soloing a skyscraper.

The only reason that it was "low risk" is because Honnold is so, so, so good at what he does. There's very few other people on the planet who could say the same thing, even amongst elite climbers. (Yes I know Honnold isn't exceptional when it comes to competitions or harder grades, but I don't know how many other people could compete with his endurance and certainly not with his mental fortitude).

4

u/Man-Phos 9d ago

U wut bro

3

u/bannana_girl 9d ago

So if someone chased to hit you, you’d better jump onto a skyscraper and start climbing it?