Tennis or tennis players once again demonstrated the power they have within the global market for women’s sports in the world.
Forbes magazine has just released the ranking of the highest paid athletes of 2022 and in the top 10 of the list are seven tennis players, all of them led again by the Japanese Naomi Osaka.
What is noteworthy is that the profits that all of them recorded mostly come from sponsorships and contracts with brands and a small part is money they earned on the pitch.
Osaka leads the general list with 51.1 million dollars, of which only 1.1 million come from tournament earnings, since this year the Japanese was affected by a series of injuries that took her away from the courts, but not from the spotlight. marketing.
The second place is occupied by Serena Williams, who at 41 years old and after announcing that she was thinking of retiring from tennis, got a total of 41.3 million dollars, only 300 thousand being those obtained on the court.
Then follows the British Emma Raducanu, who at 20 years of age is located in fourth position with earnings of $18.7 million dollars, with 700 thousand dollars in prize money per tournament.
The other tennis players who complete the Forbes Top Ten as the highest paid athletes of 2022 are Iga Swiatek in fifth with 14.9 million dollars; Venus Williams, sixth with 12.1 million; Coco Gauff, seventh with 11.1 million, and Jessica Pegula, ninth with 7.6 million.
Of the non-tennis athletes who managed to get into the top 10 are the Chinese skier Eileen Gu, located in third place with earnings of 20.1 million dollars, while the American gymnast Simone Biles placed eighth place, with 10 million dollars. dollars, all earned from endorsements.
Australian golfer Minjee Lee appears in tenth place, with earnings of $7.3 million, of which $4.8 million was won by tournaments.
And after the top 10, five other tennis players appear in the top 25, such as the Canadian Leylah Fernández (7 million), the Tunisian Ons Jabeur (6.5 million), the Spanish Paula Badosa (6-2 million), the French Caroline García (5-2 million) and the Iberian Garbiñe Muguruza (5.2 million).
As a result, partnership agreements between brands and women’s sports have grown overall in the United States by 20 percent this year, mainly in organizations such as the WTA (tennis), LPGA (golf), WNBA (basketball) and the NWSL (soccer football).
Already the most active sponsorship category among women’s sports, financial brands (banks and more) upped their sponsorship game by 30 percent, followed by apparel and accessories and media to round out the top three vertical brands. .
Women’s golf outnumbers all other women’s sports in brand deals with 940 deals in 2022, leading the WTA by 17 deals, while third place is the US Women’s Soccer League with 496. .
