Oscar Piastri is on track to claim more than a world championship. If he stays on form, he could also snag the title of Australia’s most marketable international sports star.
The 24-year-old is already reportedly the nation’s highest earner in sport. But Piastri sits third in marketability behind retired motorsport champion Daniel Riccardo and Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins, according to data from sports and entertainment consultancy Gemba.
Oscar Piastri has cause for celebration as Australia’s highest-paid sports star.Credit: AP
Head of insights Simon Berry said winning a world championship this year could propel Piastri to the top.
Berry said an athlete’s marketability was determined by four factors: reach (a blend of survey data and social media following), interest in the person, their influence on others, and momentum, which involves looking at social media trends year-on-year.
Proving that marketability does not necessarily translate to salary, there is a noticeable absence of NBA basketballers – some of Australia’s highest-paid athletes – in Gemba’s top-10 list.
Berry said for an Australian audience, the NBA might have less pull than some international sports, such as F1, or a beloved national team, such as the men’s cricket team.
“Cricket, obviously, is a great love. Cricket is one of Australia’s core sports, so Pat [Cummins] does well,” he said.
Knowing how marketable an athlete is can help brands and sportspeople inform deal negotiations.
“Success helps people shift up in their marketability. And then it’s about how do you make hay while the sun shines and your and your marketability is high?” Berry said.
“For brands, it’s about how do you try and identify people on the way up … [which] is much more affordable and appealing than having to wait until they have ultimate success … when the fees that they would charge would be astronomical.”
Piastri, who claimed a fifth grand prix win for the season in Spain at the weekend, inked a deal worth $41 million a year with McLaren in March, first reported in the Daily Mail UK and according to the Australian Financial Review. It was the seventh win of the Melburnian’s Formula 1 career, and he leads the championship race by 10 points to his McLaren teammate Lando Norris.
Formula 1 contracts often also include bonuses for podium finishes or wins, the amount of which varies depending on the driver’s agreement with their team. Forbes Australia estimates Piastri made more than $17 million in bonuses last year.
Piastri’s lucrative new deal, which will extend beyond 2026, rocketed him to the title of highest-paid Australian sports star, and bonuses from his five wins for the season will push him even further above the second highest-paid, the NFL’s Jordan Mailata.
The Philadelphia Eagles offensive tackle, who last year was the first Australian to play in a Super Bowl victory, earns $24 million a season, which will jump to $33 million from 2026 after signing a three-year contract extension.
Piastri’s spot at the top of the table was, until last year, held by NBA player Ben Simmons, who came to the end of his Brooklyn Nets contract worth more than $63 million-per-year. He signed with the Los Angeles Clippers in February for $1.7 million per season, according to Fox Sports, following years of injury and underperformance.
The NBA is a boon for Australian athletes, with many of the nation’s highest-paid stars playing basketball in the United States, including Josh Green, Matisse Thybulle, Dyson Daniels and Josh Giddey.
Giddey is in the midst of contract negotiations, and veteran NBA reporter Brian Windhorst has speculated he could re-sign with the Chicago Bulls for about $47 million – a number that would see the 22-year-old surpass Piastri for the biggest annual salary (excluding bonuses and endorsements).
“The going rate for a starting point guard in the NBA is around $30 million [$A46.8 million],” Windhorst told ESPN, pointing to Immanuel Quickley on about $50 million a year.
Josh Giddey is undergoing contract negotiations.Credit: AP
“I’m sure Josh Giddey’s hoping for something like that.”
Australia’s domestic sports stars pale in comparison, despite earning more than ever. In 2024, 10 AFL players pocketed salaries of at least $1.2 million, with the likes of Richmond’s Tom Lynch, Melbourne’s Christian Petracca and Western Bulldogs skipper Marcus Bontempelli among the top earners this year.
In the NRL, Kalyn Ponga, Nathan Cleary and Cameron Munster are reportedly among the highest earners, around the $1.3-$1.4 million mark.
Professor of International Sport Business at Victoria University Hans Westerbeek said sports such as Formula 1 and NBA were the most lucrative because of their broad, global popularity.
“It’s a very basic, simple marketing principle that the more eyeballs you attract, the more valuable the property is that attracts those eyeballs,” he said.
He said performance was crucial but a sports personality’s narrative power could also give them an advantage when negotiating deals.
“There’s one very big factor that drives the value up beyond their performance, and that is their ability to tell stories, to create a story about not only those 90 minutes on the racetrack, or four quarters on a football field, but everything that happens before, during and after,” he said.
Jordan Mailata was the first Australian to play in a Super Bowl win.Credit: AP
“When you’re top of your discipline or top of your sport, your inherent value is higher than those who do not get onto the podium. Having said that, there’s an increasing number of athletes who may never win an Olympic medal but still make a very healthy income because of the stories that they … very strategically narrate on different social media platforms or in direct production with their management companies.”
He pointed to the meteoric rise of Australian sprint sensation Gout Gout as an example of how an athlete who captured the public’s attention was quickly snapped up by brands. The 17-year-old signed an estimated $6 million deal with adidas last year.
“It has this great story of a kid who suddenly is there and rivals one of the greatest of all time [Usain Bolt], and how quickly companies then jump on the bandwagon to sign him before he becomes too expensive,” Westerbeek said.
Australian golfer Cameron Smith is also on the rich list, his deal to join the Saudi-backed LIV Golf League reportedly topping nine figures. LIV contracts are usually excluded from salary estimations because the number of years the deals span is unknown, meaning it is possible Smith is earning more than Piastri on an annual basis.
“[LIV] is a league fully owned by companies that directly associate with the government of Saudi Arabia, and it’s very much a disrupter in what has been a very traditional sport. The Saudis have done this because they know what kind of influence a platform like golf, or F1 for that matter, has in it, in order for them to have some kind of power base in global sport,” Westerbeek said.
Gemba’s Berry said Netflix’s Drive to Survive series had broadened the popularity of motorsport, but Piastri’s on- track success had helped him climb the most marketable list above the other 263 Australian athletes the organisation tracked.
In 2023, when Matildas fever swept the nation as Australia co-hosted the FIFA Women’s World Cup, the most marketable athletes were Sam Kerr, Ash Barty, Daniel Ricciardo and Nick Kyrgios.
Berry said Ricciardo’s reach was what made him more marketable compared to Piastri, for now, despite the fact he no longer competes in Formula 1.
“Obviously, where they are in their journeys is very different. Oscar’s still at the start of his F1 journey … whereas Daniel is at the other end. Oscar’s reach is growing, whereas Daniel’s is stable.”
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