By the time Serena Williams announced in August that she was ready to hang up her racket after 27 years in professional tennis, she had built an estimated fortune of $260 million. That made her one of only two athletes, along with her old rival Maria Sharapova, on the list of America’s richest self-made women.
Williams stands out in any number of ways, not just with her open-era-record 23 Grand Slam singles titles but with her career prize money of $94.8 million—more than double the WTA Tour’s next-best figure, and more than quadruple the LPGA Tour’s top mark. With total career earnings of $450 million including endorsements and other business endeavors, she is light years ahead of any other female athlete.
The good news, however, is that, after paving the way for other female athletes to start earning bigger bucks, she may not be such an outlier for long. Fellow tennis star Naomi Osaka has joined her as one of just two women on the list of the world’s 50 highest-paid athletes, and in fact surpassed her in annual earnings starting in 2020. Now, a new group of marketable sports stars is coming of age and already earning millions. In fact, eight of 2022’s top-earning female athletes made at least $10 million, double the number from a year ago and the first time more than seven women have hit that milestone since Forbes introduced the ranking in 2008. Among the women in that earnings stratosphere this year are four newcomers to the list: freestyle skier Eileen Gu and tennis aces Emma Raducanu, Iga Świątek and Coco Gauff.
In all, the world’s 25 highest-paid female athletes hauled in an estimated $285 million in 2022 before taxes and agents’ fees, with the top ten accounting for $194 million of that total—up 17% from the 2021 top ten’s record $167 million. With $51.1 million in earnings, Osaka is No. 1 for the third straight year, followed by Williams with $41.3 million.
2022 HIGHEST-PAID FEMALE ATHLETES
#1. $51.1 mil
Naomi Osaka
#2. $41.3 mil
Serena Williams
#3. $20.1 mil
Eileen Gu
#4. $18.7 mil
Emma Raducanu
#5. $14.9 mil
Iga Świątek
