Top Earning Female Athletes of 2023: Tennis Dominates the Rankings

The end of the year is approaching and punctually, like every December, the time for taking stock arrives. Rankings, the best and the worst, but also “doing the math” for athletes, a topic that often piques the (sometimes morbid) curiosity of readers. An interesting ranking, from this point of view, comes from the analysis of sport at a female level. In fact, among the professionals of all the various disciplines of the world of sport, the racket dominates. Seven of the top eight highest-paid sportswomen of 2023 are in fact tennis players, who, between the salary earned through various victories on the court and sponsorships, have essentially dominated the entire pink sports scene.

Coco Gauff, with 22.7 million dollars, was the highest paid sportswoman of 2023. Behind her were colleagues Iga Swiatek, Emma Raducanu, Naomi Osaka, Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina and Jessica Pegula. Among these seven tennis players in the top eight positions, only Eileen Gu, an American freestyle skier who, with a 20 million dollar sponsorship contract, manages to take third place in the rankings. Completing the Top 10 are the gymnast Simone Biles and the golfer Nelly Korda, curiously daughter and sister of tennis players (father Petr and brother Sebastian).

ATLETA ED ETA’SPORTGUADAGNI NEL 2023 (mln $)1. Coco Gauff (19)Tennis22.72. Iga Swiatek (22)Tennis21.93. Eileen Gu (20)Sci freestyle204. Emma Raducanu (21)Tennis16.25. Naomi Osaka (26) Tennis156. Aryna Sabalenka (25)Tennis12.27. Elena Rybakina (24)Tennis9.58. Jessica Pegula (29) Tennis99. Simone Biles (26)Ginnastica8.510. Nelly Korda (25)Golf7.9

*earnings source Sportico data

What makes us curious about this ranking, in addition to the dominance of tennis, is the enormous distance that remains if we wanted to draw up an identical ranking in terms of the highest paid athletes at a male level. According to Forbes data, the figures that Ronaldo, Messi, LeBron or Curry will reach in 2023 are still very far from the peaks of women’s sport. In the Top 10, for example, you can still find Roger Federer, who, thanks to his sponsors, continues to earn almost 100 million dollars despite no longer being active.

ATHLETE AND AGE SPORTS EARNINGS IN 2023 ($ million)1. Cristiano Ronaldo (38)Football1362. Lionel Messi (36)Football1303. Kylian Mbappé (24)Football1204. LeBron James (38)Basketball119.55.Canelo Alvarez (33)Boxing1106. Dustin Johnson (39)Golf1077. Phil Mickelson (53)Golf1068. Steph Curry (35)Basketball100.49. Roger Federer (42)Tennis95,110. Kevin Durant (35)Basketball89.1

*source earnings data Forbes

Why are almost all tennis players?

The explanation is easy to find: tennis, at least in its 4 main competitive events of the season – the slam tournaments – has achieved equal pay. It is therefore not surprising that almost all the highest paid sportswomen are tennis players. Of the 21.9 million earned by Swiatek, 9.9 comes from earnings earned on the field at tournaments; of Sabalenka’s 12.2 million, 8.2 are from tournament results; of Rybakina’s 9.5, 6 are from tournaments and so on. The only anomalies in Emma Raducanu and Naomi Osaka, two who essentially never played this year (the first due to injuries, the other due to maternity), but who are also the ones who managed to get the best contracts from the sponsors , from which essentially all the season’s earnings come. And sponsors are also the basis of Elieen Gu’s earnings – who only earned 27,000 dollars from the races, the remaining 20 million dollars are notes with the private contracts she signed – or Biles’ entire ‘cachet’.

Emma Raducanu poses for one of her sponsors. The young Brit earned a lot from sponsors after her surprise victory at the US Open 21

Credit Foto Getty Images

Women, why all this gap with men?

It is clear that the gap with men is created precisely by the salary gap. The various Ronaldo, Messi, Mbappé earn a lot from the clubs they are registered with, as do the NBA players. However, what is striking in the differences between men and women, beyond the amounts collected, are the identity cards. With the exception of Mbappé, the highest paid men are all athletes close to their 35th birthday or even older. In the female ranking, however, Gauff, Swiatek, Gu and Raducanu – i.e. the top 4 of the richest – are 19, 22, 20 and 21 years old respectively. A women’s ranking that if we expand to the top 15 athletes who have earned the most in 2023, sees only American footballers Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe at the ‘over 30’ quota.

A totally opposite trend for men, with only Mbappé under the 30 age threshold. A fact, therefore, still, which does not give the sensation of being on the side of women. In addition to earning significantly less, evidently, their possibility of obtaining better conditions from sponsors seems to be linked to the sale of a ‘young’ image, in the specific case of Raducanu in particular of Raducanu and Osaka of being transversal on a cultural level. It is therefore clear that it seems more difficult for women to approach men. The only exception, in here, in the recent past, is the figure of Serena Williams. A unique issue at the level of women’s sport which now seems to be, for all the others, an ‘economic’ goal that is once again very distant.

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