During his years at Ferrari, when he won five Formula 1 world championships and set the record for the most championship wins of any driver in history, Michael Schumacher was being paid $31 million per year, making him the highest paid sportsman in the world. That was a huge sum of money, but Sebastian Vettel is now poised to make even more. Assuming that his move from Red Bull to Ferrari is made official, he will be making $80 million a year.

Just to give you a bit of perspective on this one, LeBron James makes $19.3 million, and even though he can add another $53 million to that figure from endorsements, he's still taking home less than just Vettel's Ferrari salary. But Ferrari is a team that likes to win, a lot, and being listed as an "also ran" team so many times in recent years must have finally gotten to them enough to make them pony up the cash for the four-time world champion. Since Vettel has thus far only really enjoyed true F1 success behind the wheel of a Red Bull car, it will be interesting to see if the gamble is worth it.