Coco Gauff pulled in $33 million this year. For the second straight year, she's the highest-paid female athlete on the planet. And she’s worth every penny of it.
At 21, the New Balance ambassador, two-time Grand Slam champion, and cultural force is operating in rarified air—only Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams have earned more in a single year in the 18-year history of Forbes tracking women's earnings. And she's doing it with the kind of grace and intentionality that makes you believe the next generation might actually get what they deserve.
And Coco isn’t alone, her peers are collectively running the women's sports money game. Ten of the top 20 highest-paid female athletes play tennis. Gauff leads at $33M, followed by Aryna Sabalenka ($30M), Iga Swiatek ($25.1M), Qinwen Zheng ($22.6M), Madison Keys ($13.4M), Naomi Osaka ($12.5M), Elena Rybakina ($12.5M), Jessica Pegula ($12.3M), Amanda Anisimova ($11.3M), and Jasmine Paolini ($8.3M). That's half the list. Basketball brought four players, golf added two. Unfortunately, other sports (primarily soccer) are still in line, trying to get into the club.
This isn't totally unexpected however—tennis has always been the financial engine for women's sports (thank you Billie Jean King and Venus Williams). But even with that dominance, even with Rybakina taking home a $5.235 million check from the WTA Finals in Riyadh (the largest single-event prize in women's tennis history), even with 14 women crossing the $10 million threshold this year, the gender pay gap remains absurd.
No woman has made Forbes' top 50 highest-paid athletes overall since 2023. The cutoff for that list this year? $53.6 million. More than $20 million beyond what Gauff made. The top 20 men on that list earned a combined $2.3 billion—eight times what the top 20 women pulled in. Eighty-two male athletes in the NFL, MLB, and NBA made more than Gauff's entire $33 million haul with their playing salaries alone. Not endorsements. Not side hustles. Just salary. Marinate on that for a minute.
Ironically, women's earnings are flipped. Seventy-two percent of the top 20 women's income comes off the court—endorsements, appearances, brand deals. For men, it's the opposite: 71% from salaries, bonuses, and prize money. The top 20 men made $674 million off the field. The top 20 women? $212 million. Three times less for building the same brands, moving the same cultural needles, doing the same work.
Coco Gauff gets it too. She told Forbes, "Sometimes there's female players who are selling out some of these stadiums more than some of the other guys who are getting paid way more. I think combined [WTA and ATP] events, when you look at it objectively, it doesn't make a lot of sense why the pay gap is that large."
She’s not wrong. The four Grand Slams have paid equal prize money since 2007, but smaller WTA events still don't guarantee parity with their ATP equivalents. The Charleston Open became the first WTA 500 tournament to voluntarily equalize its prize pool starting in 2026. One tournament. Out of dozens. The WTA has pledged to close the gap at combined 500- and 1000-level events by 2033. That's eight years away. Eight years of women getting paid less while they wait for their shot at equity.
Tennis players are leading that charge, not just in earnings but in visibility, advocacy, and cultural influence. Gauff's $25 million in off-court income isn't just about shoe deals—it's about brands recognizing that she's a voice, a movement, a moment. Same with Osaka, Sabalenka, Swiatek. They're not just athletes, they help move the needle, especially as they stay winning.
The top 20 women athletes earned $293 million combined this year, up 13% from 2024. That's progress. But when 82 men make more than the highest-paid woman with salary alone, when the revenue gap is 8-to-1, when women have to build empires off the court because the on-court money isn't there—that's not equity. That's survival.
The good news is, there is momentum. Women's sports are projected to generate $2.35 billion in 2025, up from $1.88 billion in 2024. The LPGA announced a record $132 million prize pool for next season—a 91% increase since 2021. The WNBA is renegotiating its CBA ahead of an $2.2 billion media deal. New leagues like Unrivaled are paying basketball players $220,000 for a winter season. Money is moving. A little like molasses, but it's moving.
Hopefully, the momentum in other sports (particularly soccer, basketball, volleyball, softball) stays strong and drives the investment that allows the players to earn living wages and get on par with their male counterparts.
Coco Gauff is 21 and already making history. She—and the nine other women on that list—would be even on another level if the game was fair.
