Taylor Swift Named Billboard's Biggest Earner Of 2013, Plus Other Rich Folks Who Made The List
Taylor Swift is a 24-year-old woman from Pennsylvania, who writes songs about past relationships and posts photos of her cat on Twitter. Also, she is the highest earning entertainer for 2013, according to Billboard. With $39,699,576.60 she came in far ahead of the second and third best – Kenny Chesney (no joke) and Justin Timberlake. In 2013, Chesney made $32,956,240.70, while Timberlake only raked in a “modest” $31,463,297.03 - figures that look more like random sequences of numbers than actual calculated amounts of money.
But they were calculated and very thoroughly, too. The list was compiled, using data from Nielsen SoundScanand Broadcast Data Systems – which track sales and spins on TV, radio and internet, respectively – as well as Billboard’s own BoxScore charts. It measures musicians’ profits from touring, recorded-music sales, publishing royalties and revenue from digital music and video streaming (money earned from sponsorships, merch and syncs weren't included due to a lack of data).
Swift came out on top in nearly every category.Her recent Red Tour took in an estimated $30 million, while the singer notched nearly 10 million downloads and ranked fifth in streaming royalties. Chesney did pretty well for himself too, with $90 million from his recent No Shoes Nation tour, or over 1 million tickets sold to his 10th national tour.