Contrary to what we could all think soccer is not "the sport of the poor". Soccer is by far the sport that deals with the biggest amount of money. Not only the players earn a tremendous salary but famous clubs buy player for several hundred millions of dollars. Zinedine Zidane, a former french player (won twice the best football player award) was bought by the REAL MADRID for a record of 500 million dollars. It is very common every year to see players tranferred for several million dollars.
Besides the players earn great incomes. David Beckam is the soccer player the most paid with $10 millions a year (without including cotacts with makes such as Nike, Addidas, or Reebock). Ronaldo follows with $9 million a year, then Zinedine zidane, Christian Vieri, Alessandro Del Piero, and Frank Lampard.
However the player get the most of their money out of advertismen. For instance, Beckam has a contract worth 20 millions a year with sport compagnies. It is now $30 million a year for him!
In addition he also gets a lot of extras from his clubs (as much as $500 000 a year).
The players and clubs aren't the only ones impacted by this great sport. When stadiums host big events such as the World Cup or the European Champions League seats close the the fied can be sold for several hundreds of euros (then resold for ten times more by people!).
Since soccer is player by millions of people all over the world the television broadcasts do get a lot of money. Finally all goods related to soccer are very popular amongst youngsters: soccer balls, soccer shoes, shirts with Barthez, Khan, Deco, Ronaldhino are sold everywhere in the world.