Garth Brooks tops Forbes’ 2016 Country Cash Kings list

Garrth Brooks, who last fall set a record by performing five consecutive concert at San Diego’s Valley View Casino Center, is 2016’s biggest earning artist in country music, according to the annual Forbes magazine tally.

Brooks, 54, made a whopping $70 million over the past year. Given that he is still on tour this summer — his first Anaheim concert in 20 years is Sept 17 at the Honda Center (where he’s likely to add more dates) — Brooks’ coffers should grow even more full.

The fact that he charges less for his concert tickets than most major country and pop music headliners, with an average price of under $75 for all seats, makes his topping the Forbes list even more notable at a time when triple-figure ticket prices are too often the norm.

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That said, Brooks $70 million earnings for 2016 are down from the record-setting $90 million Forbes estimated he made in its 2015 Country Cash Kings tally.

Kenny Chesney, who performs Aug. 4 at Sleep Train Amphitheatre in Chula Vista, placed second on the 2016 Forbes’ list with earnings of $56 million for the past year. As Forbes notes, he profits not just from concert ticket sales but “by shilling the likes of Corona beer and Costa sunglasses as well as his own Blue Chair Bay rum.”

Luke Bryan, who performs Sept. 17 at Sleep Train Amphitheatre, is third on the Forbes list with 2016 earnings of $53 million, followed by Toby Keith with $47.5 million, and Jason Aldean — who performs Aug. 13 at Sleep Train Amphitheatre — with $36.5 million.

Zac Brown Band, which most recently performed in San Diego at last September’s KAABOO Del Mar festival, came in sixth with earnings of $30 million.

The highest earning female artist was Shania Twain, whose “Still the One” comeback tour included an Aug. 22 show at Valley View Casino Center. Her earnings for the past year are $27.5 million, according to Forbes, which estimates that the Top 15 earners in country music for the past year earned a combined total of half a billion dollars. That’s a drop from the previous year, in part because of Brooks’ $20 million dip in earnings.

The new Forbes list includes a record four female artists: Twain; Carrie Underwood; Dolly Parton (who performs Sept, 27 at Valley View Casino Center); and Miranda Lambert.

Lambert earned $18 million, $6 million less than her now former husband, Blake Shelton, who is well paid as one of the coach’s on the hit TV show “The Voice.”

Forbes compiles its Country Cash Kings list through record sales data from Nielsen and concert tour ticket sales from Pollstar. It also factors in earnings from “non-musical business ventures,” be it corporate endorsement deals or — on Toby Keith’s case — a chain of restaurants and a tequila line. As the magazine explains, its “total are estimates for pretax income from June 1, 2015 through June 1, 2016; fees for agents, managers and lawyers are not deducted.”

You can read the Forbes article online at forbes.com.

george.varga@sduniontribune.com