Highest Paid Sportswomen In 2022

Eight women are now making at least $10 million each, closing the distance between themselves and Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka. This is a bunch of budding stars. Check out the highest paid sportswomen in 2022!

After 27 years of playing tennis professionally, Serena Williams stated in August that she was ready to put her racket away. By that time, she had amassed an estimated worth of $260 million. She and her former adversary Maria Sharapova were the only other athletes on the list of the richest self-made women in America.

Williams stands out in a variety of ways, not just for her open-era-record 23 Grand Slam singles championships but also for her career prize money of $94.8 million, which is more than twice as much as the next-best amount on the WTA Tour and more than four times as much as the top figure on the LPGA Tour. With total career earnings of $450 million including endorsements and other business endeavours, she is light years ahead of any other female athlete.

One of just two other women on the list of the top 50 athletes in the world is Naomi Osaka, a fellow tennis player who will overtake her in terms of annual earnings starting in 2020. A new generation of marketable sports stars is now maturing and making millions of dollars.

In fact, eight of the top-earning female athletes in 2022 earned at least $10 million, which is more than double the number from a year ago and the most females to reach that milestone since Forbes started keeping track of it in 2008. Four additions to the list of women earning in that range of money this year are freestyle skier Eileen Gu, tennis stars Emma Raducanu, Iga Witek, and Coco Gauff.

Highest Paid Sportswomen In 2022

Naomi Osaka

SPORT: TENNIS | NATIONALITY: JAPAN | AGE: 25 | ON-FIELD: $1.1 mil • OFF-FIELD: $50 mil

Injury-related setbacks plagued Osaka for much of the year, and the team lost a big sponsor when FTX filed for bankruptcy in November, just eight months after the partnership had been announced. Only six athletes on Forbes’ list of the 2022 greatest athletes earned more money off the field than she did ($50 million), but she still has one of the best sponsorship portfolios in sports. With the cofounding of a skin-care business, a production firm, a talent agency, and, starting of this month, an investment in a pickleball team, Osaka also maintains a busy schedule as an entrepreneur.

Serena Williams

SPORT: TENNIS | NATIONALITY: U.S. | AGE: 41 | ON-FIELD: $0.3 mil • OFF-FIELD: $41 mil

Williams stressed that she was “not retired” and that the likelihood that she will play tennis again was “extremely high” at a TechCrunch conference two months after a first-person essay in Vogue appeared to suggest that she was quitting. Even if the break from the game is just momentary, she has taken use of the opportunity by booking a number of lucrative speaking engagements. She also has a venture capital firm that invests in more than 70 businesses and a new business she cofounded to offer topical pain relief medicines, so she has plenty to keep her busy. Additionally, she appeared in the recent movie Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.

Eileen Gu

SPORT: FREESTYLE SKIING | NATIONALITY: CHINA | AGE: 19 ON-FIELD: $0.1 mil • OFF-FIELD: $20 m

Gu, who was born and raised in San Francisco but competes internationally for her mother’s country of China, solidified her ascent to prominence at the Beijing Olympics in February by taking home two gold medals and a silver. She has had success outside of the ski slopes as well. She is a Stanford University student currently and has a long list of sponsors, including Red Bull, Therabody, Louis Vuitton, Mengniu Dairy, and JD.com. As a client of the influential agency IMG, she also models.

Emma Raducanu

SPORT: TENNIS | NATIONALITY: BRITAIN | AGE: 20 | ON-FIELD: $0.7 mil • OFF-FIELD: $18 mi

When Raducanu won the 2021 U.S. Open as an 18-year-old qualifier, it unleashed a wave of sponsorships, including those from British Airways, Dior, Evian, HSBC, Porsche, Tiffany, and Vodafone, in addition to Nike. Although the young British singer’s international singles ranking, which peaked at No. 10, has dropped to No. 80, marketers continue to find her to be quite appealing. To begin with, a recent study by the analytics company SponsorUnited discovered that she had the greatest average engagement of any female tennis player for her branded postings on social media.

Iga Świątek

SPORT: TENNIS | NATIONALITY: POLAND | AGE: 21 | ON-FIELD: $9.9 mil • OFF-FIELD: $5 mil

This year’s French Open and U.S. Open victories by Witek gave her three Grand Slam singles championships overall, one more than Osaka for the most among active female players who aren’t named Williams. By outpacing No. 2 Ons Jabeur in both ranking points and prize money, she took the top spot in the world rankings and on the list of winners for the year. In September, witek secured a contract with IMG, the top tennis agency, to add to a list of endorsements that already included Asics and PZU, a Polish insurance provider.

Venus Williams

SPORT: TENNIS | NATIONALITY: U.S. | AGE: 42 | ON-FIELD: $0.1 mil • OFF-FIELD: $12 mil

Williams only participated in four tournaments in 2022, losing every match she played, but she has already been granted a wild card to the Australian Open the following month. A player with a world ranking of 1,007 would generally be rejected by traditional tennis sponsors, but Williams’ endorsement negotiations are considerably more focused on her celebrity than her Grand Slam results. She maintains a hectic speaking schedule as well, making more than 30 appearances this year, each of which is compensated handsomely.

Coco Gauff

SPORT: TENNIS | NATIONALITY: U.S. | AGE: 18 | ON-FIELD: $3.1 mil • OFF-FIELD: $8 mil

Many in the sport think it’s only a matter of time before Gauff wins a Grand Slam after she nearly made a breakthrough at the French Open, where she advanced to the singles and doubles finals. Her off-court earnings might be even higher if it weren’t for her agent, Alessandro Barel Di Sant Albano of Team8, and her parents, father Corey, who coaches her, and mother Candi, who homeschooled her. She recently signed an extension with New Balance that was rumoured to come with a sizable pay raise. Her long-term potential has been prioritised, while tennis-related distractions and burnout risks have been kept to a minimum.

Simone Biles

SPORT: GYMNASTICS | NATIONALITY: U.S. | AGE: 25 | ON-FIELD: $0 • OFF-FIELD: $10 mil

Biles is one of the few Olympic athletes who doesn’t appear to lose popularity in years without the Games. She appeared in new commercials for Powerade, and Subway, and a Super Bowl ad for software company BMC in 2022 while also releasing an activewear line with Athleta. Together with soccer player Megan Rapinoe, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in July. She also increased her stock position in the cybersecurity company Axonius.

Jessica Pegula

SPORT: TENNIS | NATIONALITY: U.S. | AGE: 28 | ON-FIELD: $3.6 mil • OFF-FIELD: $4 mil

Although she has yet to go to the semifinals of a Grand Slam, Pegula, the daughter of Buffalo Bills billionaire owners Terry and Kim Pegula, finished the season as the highest-ranked American tennis player at No. 3, four positions in front of Coco Gauff. After joining the talent agency GSE Worldwide in November, the late-blooming celebrity, who has her own skincare line called Ready 24, will try to expand on her endorsement relationships with Adidas, Yonex, and Ready Nutrition.

Minjee Lee

SPORT: GOLF | NATIONALITY: AUSTRALIA | AGE: 26 | ON-FIELD: $4.8 mil • OFF-FIELD: $2.5 mil

In addition to her triumph at the U.S. Women’s Open in June, the second major event in her career, Lee ended second in 2022 with $3.8 million, placing her in the top 10 of the LPGA Tour’s official money list for the fifth consecutive year. By winning the Aon Risk Reward Challenge, a season-long competition that rewards the golfer with the highest average score to par, she added a $1 million prize. Incidentally, Aon, a British financial services firm, is among her sponsors, alongside brands drawn to her South Korean heritage like Hana Bank and apparel company WAAC.

 

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