‘Forbes’ Keeps Keith, Swift, Chesney as Country Cash Kings

Taylor Swift and Toby Keith

Today (July 28), Forbes released its Country Cash Kings list, calculating 13 top artists’ concert ticket sales, royalties for recorded music and publishing, merchandise sales, endorsement deals and other business ventures from June 2013-14.

1) Toby Keith, $65 million
2) Taylor Swift, $64 million
3) Kenny Chesney, $44 million
4) Jason Aldean, $37 million
5) Luke Bryan, $34 million
6) Zac Brown Band, $29 million
7) Keith Urban, $28 million
8) Rascal Flatts, $27 million
9) George Strait, $26 million
10) Florida Georgia Line, $24 million
11) Tim McGraw, $23.5 million
12) Blake Shelton, $23 million
13) Brad Paisley, $23 million

“2014 Near Misses” include Eric Church, Faith Hill, Garth Brooks, Miranda Lambert, Lady Antebellum, Carrie Underwood, Hunter Hayes and Kacey Musgraves.

Compared to the 10 slots the magazine reported in 2013, the top three earners remained static. Aldean and Bryan saw the largest revenue jumps, up $20 million and $17 million from last year, respectively. Breaking onto this year’s list are Urban, FGL and Shelton, while Underwood dropped out of the list completely.

Figures include pretax income before agent, manager and lawyer fees are deducted and originate from Pollstar, the RIAA, industry insiders and some of the artists themselves.

Earlier this month, the publication released its Celebrity 100 List, which included Swift (No. 17), Toby Keith (No. 51) and Chesney (No. 71). At the beginning of 2014, Forbes‘ “30 Under 30? list included both Hayes, 22, and Swift, 24.