Top 10 most valuable athletes ranked

#6 Tiger Woods: $16.6 million (27% decrease over last year)

Tiger Woods may be a shell of his former self, but his brand value is still as formidable as ever

Tiger Woods, at a point of time in our lives, was bigger than the game of golf itself. You may not have seen a single game of golf or known how it was played, but you'd have heard of Woods, and you'd have developed an admiration for the sheer brilliance of his sporting achievements

The mere fact that he is still on this list, let alone so high up, is a testament to the immensity of the brand he had created for himself before the mother-of-all-dirty-scandals ripped his reputation, and career, to shreds.

Winner of 79 PGA titles (14 Majors) and the second most successful golfer of all time, Woods continues to be a force to reckon with as a sporting brand and despite many big names dropping him he still has mega-bucks deals with TaylorMade (golfing equipment) and Monster Energy, to name but two.