Touring: $39.6 million
Recording: $0.9 million
Publishing: $2.2 million
Net: $44 million
2002 rank: N/A

The 40 Licks tour, which started in Boston on September 3rd, won't turn out to be the Stones' most lucrative ever. Their unorthodox approach -- playing venues ranging from 70,000-seat stadiums to 2,400-capacity clubs in twenty-eight different cities -- was designed more for the music than for the money. But once again, the Stones were working with promoter Michael Cohl, who has raised tour grosses (and ticket prices) to previously unimaginable levels since he delivered on a promised $40 million for forty shows on the band's Steel Wheels tour in 1989. Sources close to the band say the Stones should net about $100 million by the time the current tour ends in August, when the final show is played at London's Wembley Stadium. And you can throw in as much as $7 million for a single night's work: the birthday party the Stones played for Texas multimillionaire David Bonderman. Already in this year's coffers: a $5 million license fee for a live HBO special.