Tennis Stars Lead the Pack in Women's Sports Earnings for 2025
The 2025 highest-paid female athletes list shows tennis dominating earnings, led by Coco Gauff, with no female soccer players in the top ranks.
- • Coco Gauff tops the highest-paid female athletes list for the third consecutive year with R$168.6 million in earnings.
- • Ten of the top fifteen highest-paid female athletes in 2025 are tennis players.
- • No female soccer players appear in the top 15 highest-paid female athletes list.
- • A significant number of the highest-paid female athletes are under the age of 25, showing a youthful dominance.
Key details
The 2025 ranking of the highest-paid female athletes, released by Sportico, underscores the dominance of tennis players in women's sports earnings. American Coco Gauff tops the list for the third consecutive year, earning approximately R$168.6 million (US$31 million). Close behind her are Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus with R$163 million (US$30 million) and Polish star Iga Swiatek with R$125.6 million (US$23.5 million). Together, these three highlight the financial prominence of tennis in the women's sports arena.
Overall, tennis players occupy ten of the top fifteen spots, a clear testament to the sport’s unique position where women's earnings nearly match men's. Other stars like Zheng Qinwen, Madison Keys, and Venus Williams each earn over R$55 million (US$10 million). Outside tennis, skier Eileen Gu ranks fourth, earning R$125.1 million mostly from sponsorships, while basketball star Caitlin Clark and golfers Nelly Korda and Jeeno Thitikul appear further down the list.
Notably absent from the top 15 are female soccer players, despite the sport's global popularity. This gap reflects a stark contrast in earnings, with no representatives from leading women's soccer clubs such as Barcelona or Lyon making the cut.
The data also reveals a youthful trend among the top earners, with nearly half under the age of 25, contrasting with male athlete earnings demographics. These insights emphasize tennis’s financial leadership among female sports and highlight ongoing disparities in other women's sports sectors.
This article was synthesized and translated from native language sources to provide English-speaking readers with local perspectives.