Cristiano Ronaldo is arguably the biggest global sporting icon on the planet at the moment and it's hard to imagine anyone surpassing him.

The Real Madrid megastar certainly benefits from his status as one of football's best players of all time and in turn that has seen him become the leading face of American sports brand Nike.

Many of the game's top players have contracts with leading sports brands - as Lionel Messi does with Adidas and Olivier Giroud's Puma deal, for example.

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But while sponsorship deals are often a nice earner for footballers, no one benefits more from a partnership like Ronaldo does.

The Portugal international became the first footballer to be named the highest-earning athlete in Forbes' rich list, in 2016, earning $88 million over a period of 12 months.

And it seems that the Real Madrid forward isn't content to just settle for his £365,000-a-week deal at the Santiago Bernabeu, along with his earnings from his CR7 brand, after signing fresh eye-watering terms with Nike.

Ronaldo signs new Nike deal

As per Goal, Ronaldo is set earn a colossal £800 million through simply posting on social media - following a year in which the 32-year-old generated over £402 million in revenue for the sports brand.

Having posted 1,703 times during 2016, Ronaldo's social media posts produced 2.25 billion interactions across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, with Nike's branding featured or mentioned in 347 of the Real star's posts.

And those posts alone gathered 477 million interactions, while one in particular earned Nike £4.7 million in media value.

It's clear to see how valuable Ronaldo is to Nike and why the former Manchester United star is so proactive on social media.

But the Real Madrid icon's social media presence isn't simply to satisfy his sponsor's demands, and often shares posts on Instagram with his son, Cristiano Jr, while also giving an insight into his luxurious lifestyle.

Life after football

And it's clear to see that, once the Portuguese does inevitably hang his boots up, he will continue to earn big money no matter what he ventures into next.

His CR7 brand will likely become more of a prominent focus, while he opened his own hotel in his home city of Funchal, in Madeira, last year - which suggests life after football will be just as busy for Ronaldo.

In an interview with FourFourTwo earlier this year, per The Sun, the Real star confessed: “Life is not only about football. After playing I’d like to go into the movies.”