Gauff, other stars dominate list of highest-paid female athletes

Coco Gauff. Xinhua

Coco Gauff, other tennis stars dominate list of highest-paid female athletes

By Sai Mohan | Last updated Dec 6, 2024 4:53 AM ET

For a second year in a row, American tennis star Coco Gauff topped Sportico's list of highest-paid female athletes, earning approximately $30.4M in 2024.

While $21M of her earnings came from endorsement deals with brands such as New Balance, Rolex, Bose and L'Oreal, Gauff earned $9.4M in prize money for winning three singles titles, including the WTA Finals and China Open. Remarkably, she topped the list despite having a down year that saw her underperform at all four majors and suffer a third-round exit at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

By cracking the $30M mark, Gauff joined Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams as the only female athletes to reach the mark for a calendar year.

American skier Eileen Gu ($22.1M) came in second, earning $22M in endorsement deals and $62K in prize money.

The next five athletes on the list were all tennis stars, with Iga Swiatek ($21.4M), Zheng Qinwen ($20.6M), Aryna Sabalenka ($17.7M), Naomi Osaka ($15.9M) and Emma Raducanu ($14.7M) rounding off the top seven.

Team sports stars dominate the 15 highest-paid male athletes, which means their off-field/court earnings are only 33% of total pay.

Among women, where tennis/golf dominate, endorsements are 71% of total earnings, and 99% for Eileen Gu, Simone Biles & Caitlin Clark. pic.twitter.com/2hBlXsa5TL
— Kurt Badenhausen (@kbadenhausen) December 5, 2024

Golfer Nelly Korda ($14.4M), legendary gymnast Simone Biles ($11.1M) and basketball sensation Caitlin Clark ($11.1M) rounded off the top 10.

As expected, Clark earned most of her bread from endorsement deals. The Fever guard netted $100K as a WNBA athlete (with a base rookie salary of $76,535) and more than $11M from endorsement deals with brands such as Nike, Gatorade and State Farm.

The year 2024 was a landmark year for women's sports, with U.S. women making all sorts of history at the Paris Olympics, women's soccer viewership in the UK skyrocketing to record highs and the WNBA witnessing a 155% spike in YOY viewership. That would explain why the top 15 female athletes in 2024 saw a 27% spike in earnings from 2023 (up to $221M) and at least 11 athletes netted $10M, compared to just six a year before.

It shouldn't shock anyone if these numbers skyrocket again in 2025.

Sai Mohan

A veteran sportswriter based in Portugal, Sai covers the NBA for Yardbarker and a few local news outlets. He had the honor of covering sporting events across four different continents as a newspaper reporter. Some of his all-time favorite athletes include Mike Tyson, Larry Bird, Luís Figo, Ayrton Senna and Steffi Graf.

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