Sports Business/08/20/2020

Tennis Aces Are Top Earning Women in Sport

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Forbes has published a list of the top earning female athletes in 2020. The top 10 are dominated by no less than nine tennis players. For the first time in years, Serena Williams is not the top athlete.

The top earner in the Forbes Ranking 2020: Naomi Osaka.
The top earner in the Forbes Ranking 2020: Naomi Osaka.

The most lucrative sport for professional female athletes is tennis. This is the conclusion reached by Forbes in its ranking of the world's highest-earning female athletes in 2020. No fewer than nine female tennis players are in the top 10 in the income ranking, which consists of prize money and endorsement income from June 1, 2019 to June 1, 2020. The only non-tennis player to make it to the top 10 is US footballer Alex Morgan, who reached tenth place in the list with total earnings of 4.6 million dollars.

However, Morgan is miles away from Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka, who leads the field with 37.4 million dollars. In second place is Serena Williams, who has been the top earner in recent years, with income of 36 million dollars. Williams' gap to third-placed Ashleigh Barty (Australia, $13.1 million) is huge. Barty's $10.1 million in prize money is the highest in that category.

The Forbes Top 10 highest paid female athletes

PositionNameTotal income (in million dollars)Salary/prize money (in million dollars)endorsement revenue (in million dollars)Sport
1Naomi Osaka37,43,434Tennis
2Serena Williams36432Tennis
3Ashleigh Barty13,110,13Tennis
4Simona Halep10,96,94Tennis
5Bianca Andreescu8,94,94Tennis
6Garbine Muguruza6,62,14,5Tennis
7Elina Svitolina6,45,41Tennis
8Sofia Kenya5,84,81Tennis
9Angelique Kerber5,31,34Tennis
10Alex Morgan4,60,44,2Football

 

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