Serena Williams, who was the only woman to break into the top 100 in 2019, ranks 33rd on the list with $36 million in total earnings. The highest salary in the National Women’s Soccer League is $46,200. 5 year-end world ranking triggered lucrative bonuses from sponsor Nike, which renegotiated her contract earlier in the year. Forbes had announced that the 22-year-old Japanese-American had overtaken tennis legend Serena Williams as … Every single entry on the top 10 list is a … But it was a long road for women’s tennis players, who faced the same fight for better pay that athletes in soccer, basketball and hockey have tackled in recent years. She was also the only woman in the list of the top 100 highest paid … Naomi Osaka is the highest-paid female athlete in the world. While she has never won a Grand Slam tournament, Karolína Plíšková is currently the third-ranked tennis player by the WTA and finished 2016-18 inside the top 10. Kerber’s three Grand Slam wins since the start of 2016 are the most in women’s tennis. She ranks well below global icon Serena Williams, who landed at No. The decision made her an even hotter commodity for Olympic sponsors, like Procter & Gamble These ladies are flying the flag for women in the newsroom, and many of them are among the most sought-after media stars in America. , All Nippon Airways and Nissin, which signed endorsement deals with Osaka to use her around marketing for the Games. ; This year, only two women made the magazine’s list of top-100 highest-paid athletes. Of the top 12 women of Forbes' recent list of women athletes that made the most money, 11 of them were tennis players. Each year, Forbes calculates the highest-paid athletes on the planet. I also spend a lot of my time digging into what athletes earn on and off the field of play. The possibility of tennis players becoming a professional is like a huge gamble. Surprising no one, tennis legend Serena Williams once again takes the top spot as she has for the past few years. She may not be playing her best tennis right now, but like her sister, Venus Williams is an icon of the sport, as many brands as an athlete. Barty won her first career Slam at the 2019 French Open, triggering lucrative bonuses from sponsors Fila and Head. The next year she defeated another Williams sister, getting the better of Venus in the final of the 2017 Wimbledon tournament. At just 22 years old, 2018 US Open champion Naomi Osaka is the highest-paid female athlete of all time, according to an annual list published by Forbes this week.. Osaka earned $37.4 million over the past 12 months from prize money and endorsements, surpassing Serena Williams ($36 million), who had topped the list for each of the past four years. Garbiñe Muguruza rose through the ranks of women's tennis very quickly, at one point being the WTA's top-ranked player. However, wages are limited, forcing most players to bet everything on their sponsors to significantly increase their revenue at the end of the month. Almost all players will also have reductions in their apparel and racket contracts for not meeting minimum play requirements. Kerber's peak as a player was 2016 when WTA ranked her as the top tennis player on the circuit and she won her first two Grand Slams (Australian Open and US Open). 3 (as of this writing, she is ranked 19th). “We knew what we were doing was very important, but in some ways, we didn’t have anything to lose,” says Casals, who will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the tour’s first event next month. Rapinoe also endorses Nike, Budweiser, BodyArmor, Visa and at least a half-dozen more brands. © 2021 TheStreet, Inc. All rights reserved. 52). Tennis players and sisters Serena Williams (left) and Venus Williams are among the highest-earning female athletes. One of the premier athletes of her generation, Williams continues to play at an exceptionally high level and makes Grand Slam finals with regularity - most recently at Wimbledon in 2019, where she fell to Simona Halep. The great success she has had in the past several years has helped her get lucrative deals with companies like Adidas Lucrative deals with companies like Nike Plíšková's lack of a Grand Slam title, as well as the relative lack of experience she has, compared to Serena Williams or Angelique Kerber, means she doesn't quite have the endorsement deals others on this list have. Caroline Wozniacki ended both 2010 and 2011 at No. PG Morgan gave birth to her first child in May. Currently, she is the fifth-ranked player by the WTA. The U.S. Open was the first Grand Slam tournament to offer gender pay equality, in 1973, but it would be 28 years before another Slam followed suit: the Australian Open in 2001. The highest-paid female athlete in that same span made nearly $100 million less, just 23% of what Messi made. Since these titles, Muguruza has struggled to recapture that glory, currently ranked 25th by the WTA. This year, she advanced to the semifinal round of the Australian Open, falling to eventual champion Naomi Osaka. The title and her No. Not long after winning her first-ever US Open, Stephens signed an endorsement deal with Nike. Receive full access to our market insights, commentary, newsletters, breaking news alerts, and more. First place on the women's list of sports earnings only merits 26 th place in the overall sports earnings list. Forbes has released its list of the 10 highest-paid women in sports, and it shows one clear thing — tennis remains the best-paying outlet for female athletes. Forbes has released its annual rankings of the world's highest-paid athletes for 2020. She performed in her first Grand Slam tournament in 2012, and by 2016 had won her first, taking down Serena Williams in the French Open final. Osaka followed that incredible victory with another Grand Slam win in the 2019 Australian Open. 10 with $4.6 million. Action Alerts PLUS is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc. KO Among all tennis players, only Roger Federer made more than Osaka from endorsements. Her most lucrative sponsorship deal is with Adidas, which has partnered with the German tennis star since 2013. Here Are The Highest Paid Women’s Footballers In The World. Wendie Renard (348,000 euros gross per year) Wendie Renard is, without doubt, one of the best defenders in the history of women’s football. Tennis stars lead the Forbes’ 2020 list of top 10 highest paid female athletes in the world. The top ten highest-paid women in 2019 were all tennis players when a decade ago the top-ten list included NASCAR, ice skating and golf. Tennis has made moves to increase equal pay between their male and female players, and today all four … That is what the bar on the far left of the women’s graph represents. But Williams could come close to her former glory at some point. The highest-paid athlete in the world in 2019, soccer star Lionel Messi, was estimated to have made $127 million over the past year from both athletics and endorsement. In 2017, after recovering from injuries, she lived up to the potential tennis fans had known she had from a young age, defeating Madison Keys in the US Open final. Morgan is the lone non-tennis player to crack the top ten, thanks to a massive endorsement portfolio worth ten times as much as her roughly $400,000 on-field salary and bonus last year. Svitolina counts Nike, Wilson, Hublot, Damilano Barolo wines and EAFit nutrition products as sponsors. Maria Sharapova, tennis … (NKE) - Get Report means she has made $16 million in endorsements in the last year. NKE I also spend a lot of my time digging into what athletes. Endorsement partners like Nike, Gatorade, Procter & Gamble and Beats get a boost from Serena’s massive social media following of nearly 40 million fans across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Casals, whose 112 doubles tournament titles are the second-highest total ever, was one of nine female tennis players, dubbed the Original 9, who broke ranks with the U.S. Who are they and how much do they make? In 2019, she made the quarterfinals of the French Open, where she fell to Amanda Anisimova. That certainly keeps the money flowing in as she attempts to return to form on the court (WTA currently ranks her No. Since the Open title, she’s added deals with Rolex, Gatorade, Canadian paper company Royale and Sleep Country mattresses. Wozniacki has had ups and downs in her career, but at her best, she was been seen as one of the absolute best players in tennis. Before 2017, the furthest Sloane Stephens had gotten in a Grand Slam was a semifinals appearance in the 2013 Australian Open. We were fortunate, but we need more women in places of power in business.”. She fell to Angelique Kerber. In 2018, she won her first-ever Grand Slam when she defeated Sloane Stephens at the French Open, not long after losing a finals match in the Australian Open that year. 10 Members Of The United States Women’s National Soccer Team With The Highest Net Worth. Our first and lone non-tennis player on the list, Alex Morgan is one of the stars of American soccer. Kerber's pay is divided nearly evenly between winnings and endorsements, with slightly more endorsement money. The top 25 college coaches earn millions of dollars per year and often have lucrative endorsement deals on the side. The former multi-time Women’s Champion is considered to be the most veteran in the locker room who has to be one of the top 10 highest paid female WWE superstars. You may opt-out by, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society BrandVoice, European Super League Will Make Soccer’s Most Valuable Teams And Their Owners Richer, European Super League Brings Lucrative U.S. Sports Model Overseas, USC’s Alijah Vera-Tucker Would Be A Plug-And-Play Guy For The Green Bay Packers, Off To Their Worst Start Since 1997, The New York Yankees Are Searching For Answers, Joel Embiid Is Making A Late Push Up The NBA’s MVP Leaderboard, 5 Reasons Baseball’s Antitrust Exemption Still Matters To MLB Team Owners, With Jose Mourinho Fired By Tottenham Hotspur, Here Are The Candidates To Replace Him, In A Bet That Micro-Wagering Will Transform Sports Streaming, Startup Phenix Raises $16.7 Million, following attacks by President Donald Trump. Other endorsements include Yonex, Generali, Porsche and Lavazza. “We can’t be complacent,” Casals says about the ongoing pay disparity between men and women. The United States women’s national soccer team (USWNT) has become the talk of the sports world. [1] [2] In this table, the "Season" column refers to the league season for which financial data is available and referenced, which is usually not the most recently completed season of competition. In becoming the highest-paid female athlete of all time, Osaka leapfrogs fellow tennis stars Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova, who have dominated the best-paid athlete rankings for a decade. Andreescu made history as the first Canadian, male or female, to win a Grand Slam event when she captured the 2019 U.S. Open. Simona Halep has been one of, if not the most successful women's tennis player of the past few years, finishing as WTA's top-ranked player in both 2017 and 2018 (she is currently ranked 4th behind Osaka, Ashleigh Barty, and Karolína Plíšková). The best paid coach in women's college sports is a man: Geno Auriemma, the basketball coach at University of Connecticut. The time frame means the coronavirus had only a marginal impact as tennis players missed out on prize money from just two and a half months of missed events. , Volkswagen and AT&T. © 2021 Forbes Media LLC. In June 2019, she became the first Australian women ranked No. She continues to rake in money from endorsement deals she has had for years, which make up $6 million of the $7 million in pay. The ten highest-paid female athletes made $135 million over the past year, with the earnings for tennis stars Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams more … As women’s sports continue to skyrocket in popularity, it’s interesting to look at how their pay stacks up. She also endorses Rado, Jaguar, Vegemite, Banana Boat and Esmi. Here are the top-paid women athletes from around the world for 2018-19 according to the figures from Forbes Magazine. A three-time Grand Slam champion, Angelique Kerber turned pro in 2003 and has been a mainstay in Grand Slam tennis tournaments since 2007. The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) is considered the best women’s football league in the world. In addition to a lucrative book deal, she cashed in with a flurry of speaker engagements, with fees approaching six figures. She continued the momentum in 2018, making the French Open final and the US Open quarterfinal while finishing the year as the sixth-ranked player. Alex Morgan - $450,000. The USWNT has long been associated with leading the way in the fight for gender equity in soccer. (Williams is first at $93 million.) She is launching her own media company, with more details expected by the end of the year. Email: kbadenhausen@forbes.com. Most recently, in advance of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France, the United States women’s squad took a stand against “institutionalized gender discrimination” against the team. (ADDYY) , Porsche, and Rolex. The majority of her money came from winnings. 1 with $37.4 million thanks to her own massive sponsor roster. Their daughter, Olympia, is also part of the group and at 2 years old became the youngest known professional sports team owner. I am a senior editor at Forbes and focused mainly on the business of sports and our annual franchise valuations. , which committed roughly $10 million annually to win her away from Adidas. The highest paid female news anchors and how much they’re worth. Highest Paid Female Footballers In 2020: Carli Lloyd - $518,000. That reputation helps keep her on this list even though she hasn't won a Grand Slam since 2014. The best paid women’s league is the WNBA, and we have obtained the official salary figures for the 2017 season, when average pay was £57,507 for the year (or $74,759). Over the past year, she has made $5.5 million from endorsements. ... News coverage of women's sports … Lawn Tennis Association a half-century ago to protest the dollar difference between male and female prize money, which reached as high as 12-to-1 at events. Her profile and earnings soared after she led the U.S. to the 2019 World Cup championship as the tournament’s Golden Boot winner and became a cultural icon following attacks by President Donald Trump. The fight—which led to players including Casals and her longtime doubles partner Billie Jean King being banned from events sanctioned by the USLTA—gave birth to the Virginia Slims Tour, which later morphed into the WTA. 2 with $36 million, $32 million of which was paid out from endorsement deals. In 2018, she won Wimbledon and advanced deep into both the Australian Open and French Open. Prize money for the events in China would have totaled roughly $30 million. For an extended period of time, Maria Sharapova was one of the best tennis players in the world, and a recognizable name on par with the Williams sisters. ... A paid subscription is required for full access. While Halep boasts Nike among others for endorsement deals, she is the first player on the list to have made more in winnings over the past year than through her endorsements. Another surprising thing is the lack of variety when it comes to sport. At 21, she was the youngest American to win a Slam since Serena Williams in 2002. “I’m proud to see where women’s tennis is 50 years later and to know that we were instrumental in the success of the game today.”. Williams's legacy in the sport is sealed, and she is one of the most recognizable athletes in the world; fittingly, Forbes says that $25 million of the pay she made in the last year was from her various endorsements, which she has been accruing for two decades now. But earnings will be down significantly in next year’s accounting. These days more and more channels are shelling out top dollar for the best and most talented female news anchors on the market. The list of highest-paid male athletes includes stars of soccer, baseball, football, basketball, and auto racing. That is not the case anymore, thanks to injuries, inconsistent play, and a suspension for testing positive for a banned substance. Halep added her second career Slam title at Wimbledon last year, and her $36.5 million in career prize money ranks fourth all-time.   Coaches in smaller colleges and high schools earn considerably less. Even the 100th highest paid NCAA coach earns well over $500,000. I am a senior editor at Forbes and focused mainly on the business of sports and our annual franchise valuations. Nia Jax – $280,000 The Rock’s cousin has made her own identity in WWE, over the past few years. 3 on this year’s ranking of the highest-paid female athletes, with a total haul of $13.1 million. Twenty-eight members of the current national team pool announced in March that they aresuing U.S. Soccer, seeking equitable pay and treatmen… The prize money lands the Australian ace at No. In addition to the cancellation of Wimbledon, the WTA canceled its seven events in China scheduled for October and November, including the lucrative WTA Finals. Our earnings tally looks at prize money, salaries, bonuses, endorsements and appearance fees between June 1, 2019, and June 1, 2020. She last won a Grand Slam at the 2017 Australian Open. First place on the women's list of sports earnings only merits 26 th place in the overall sports earnings list. Sharapova continues to play, but not at the same level or same degree of fame. The biggest tennis events now pay equal prize money to men and women; Wimbledon in 2007 was the last Grand Slam to update its payouts. The highest salary in Major League Soccer is $7.2 million. Williams has also won several Olympic gold medals, most of which she won in the doubles tournaments together with sister Venus Williams. In 2019, she made the quarterfinal of the Australian Open and the semifinal in Wimbledon, each time winning to the eventual tournament champion (Naomi Osaka and Simona Halep, respectively). Read “The 10 Highest-Paid Female Athletes of 2013” and other Sports Lists articles from Total Pro Sports. 1 in WTA rankings, and after some bumps in the road rebounded to end 2017 and 2018 at No. I joined Forbes in 1998 after working 3 years at Financial World magazine. For four years running tennis player Serena Williams has been the highest paid female athlete in the world. The past three years have been particularly ascendant for Halep; 2017 saw her make the quarterfinals of Wimbledon and the finals of the French Open. Average tennis player salary: US$38,800 for male players and US$40,180 for female players. We’ve recently celebrated lucrative victories with female UFC stars like Amanda Nunes and Paige VanZant making the big time and guest appearances on the hottest TV shows. Williams and her husband, Alexis Ohanian, are part of an investment group that was awarded the newest National Women’s Soccer League expansion team in Los Angeles this summer. To clear further confusion and to help you clearly decide your dream game, here are the top 10 highest paid sports in the world 2021: 10. Nine of the world’s ten highest-paid female athletes make their living with a racket, with the only exception this year being Alex Morgan, co-captain of the U.S. women’s national soccer team, who lands at No. Nike had previously been criticized for a lack of maternity protection in its contracts with female athletes. It's not like she's that far removed from it, having made the final of both the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2017. 1 on this list, Serena Williams, at Wimbledon for another title. As of this writing, the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) has her ranked as the top women's tennis player in the world. 2019 has seen her pick up right where she left off, as she defeated the No. Auriemma, who will earn $2.06 million this year, the second year of a … 63). Professional athletes are distinguished from amateur athletes by virtue of being paid enough to earn a living. But she maintains a strong endorsement portfolio with Adidas, Beats, Rolex, Cesar insurance, Babolat and Maui Jim sunglasses. Currently, WTA ranks her 14th. I also started our biennial B-School rankings; annual features on the Best Places for Business (metros, states and countries); and America's Best Banks. The statistic shows the average women's professional sports player salary by league in 2017/18. Of the 100 sports superstars featured on the list, only two are women. 3 world ranking. While there are still discrepancies over what women make compared to men, it’s also telling to view the list of highest-paid female athletes. That is the gold standard in elite women’s team sport, worldwide. Wozniacki has yet to advance particularly far in a Grand Slam in 2019, which explains the dent in her prize winnings over the past year; in 2018, Wozniacki was ranked second on this list. Her latest is an Alex Morgan Barbie Doll, as part of the brand’s Role Model Series. Outside of prize money, Osaka and Williams remain tennis’ only female superstars, with Osaka setting a record for female athletes this year, beating the earnings record set by Maria Sharapova in 2015 when she earned $29.7 million and unseating Williams, who held the No. Naomi Osaka has become a global marketing superstar on and off the court. Here are some lists over time of the top earning women in sports. Osaka scored a slew of new endorsement deals following her back-to-back Grand Slam titles at the 2018 U.S. Open and the 2019 Australian Open, including Nike The majority of Venus Williams's salary over the past year has come from her various endorsement deals and business ventures. Williams was also the only woman to place on Forbes' list of 100 highest-paid athletes, at No. Though Wozniacki had won several WTA tournaments in her career, this was the first Grand Slam final she was victorious in. “We must continue to improve the exposure and profile of the women’s game so the value continues to rise. 63. No longer a rising star, Osaka has become one of the best players in tennis. We're taking a look at some of their net worths. Naomi Osaka had overtaken Serena Williams to become world's highest paid women athlete.