EPIC MATCH…Coco Gauff Roars; Set to Return The “Favour” As She Clashes With Iga Swiatek In The United Cup Finals When The United States Face Poland…See Details

Women’s sports are riding a wave of momentum, and the rising tide is—finally—starting to lift players’ pay. Indiana Fever rookie phenom Caitlin Clark, who helped push the WNBA to record highs for attendance and viewership, earned an estimated $8.1 million this year, matching the women’s basketball record set last year by the now-retired Candace Parker. Thai golfer Jeeno Thitikul took home a $4 million check at November’s CME Group Tour Championship—the largest prize in women’s golf history—while her LPGA Tour rival Nelly Korda finished with an estimated $12.5 million in total income, the best mark by a golfer in the 17 years Forbes has ranked female athletes’ earnings.

Meanwhile, 20-year-old tennis star Coco Gauff’s estimated $34.4 million gives her one of the best years ever recorded by a female athlete, behind only Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams, who peaked at $57.3 million and $45.9 million in total earnings, respectively, on Forbes’ list for 2021.

Together, the 20 highest-paid female athletes—a list that includes Korda at No. 8, Thitikul at No. 12 and Clark at No. 13, alongside the top-ranked Gauff—collected more than $258 million in 2024. That figure just edges 2022’s top 20, when Osaka and Williams accounted for more than $92 million between them, and represents a 15% increase over 2023’s $226 million.

The women’s combined total, however, remains less than 12% of the equivalent number for the top 20 male athletes, who hauled in an estimated $2.23 billion on Forbes’ 2024 list of the world’s highest-paid athletes overall, tracking the 12 months ending in May. (No women featured in the top 50 of that ranking.)

Traditionally, female athletes have had fewer and lower-paying endorsement opportunities than men—the top 20 women made an estimated $191 million off the field this year, compared with $624 million for the men—but the big difference is on the field, with playing salaries, bonuses and prize money. The WNBA’s “supermax” salary, for instance, was $241,984 this season. In the NBA, by contrast, 41 players this season will eclipse Gauff’s total earnings with their salaries alone, according to contract database Spotrac.

The gap is less stark in individual sports, but there are still disparities. In golf, Thitikul broke the LPGA Tour’s 17-year-old single-season prize money record in 2024 with $6.1 million, less than what 33 men from the PGA Tour and LIV Golf made this year. And in tennis, while the four Grand Slam tournaments now pay equal prize money to men and women, smaller tournaments don’t make the same guarantee.

In all, only four of the 20 highest-paid female athletes earned more on the field than they did off it, and the top 20’s on-field sum of $68 million represented 26% of their total, the vast majority of it from tennis players. The top 20 male athletes, by comparison, made 72% of their total on the field—almost an exact inversion of the women’s ratio.

The compensation discrepancy starts with revenue—women’s leagues simply have smaller pots to pay out of. But that math may be starting to change. The WNBA will reportedly receive $200 million a year in national TV money as part of the 11-year, $76 billion media agreements the NBA signed over the summer, a sixfold increase from the WNBA’s previous deal with ESPN, according to Sportico. The LPGA Tour is offering $131 million in purses across its 33 tournaments next year—a 90% increase since 2021—and the WTA Tour has pledged to achieve equal pay between male and female tennis players at combined 500- and 1000-level events by 2033.

Meanwhile, the NWSL, which has been drawing investment from big names including Disney CEO Bob Iger, agreed to eliminate its draft and implement a free-agent system as part of a collective bargaining agreement announced in August. And new women’s leagues are sprouting up in hockey (the Professional Women’s Hockey League), softball (the Athletes Unlimited Softball League) and basketball (Unrivaled), among other sports.

In one other promising sign for the growing financial viability of women’s pro sports, while the list of the highest-paid female athletes remains dominated by tennis, the mix of sports is getting more balanced. This year’s ranking includes three golfers, two basketball players, a soccer player, a gymnast, a freestyle skier and a badminton player. (Five years ago, the entire top 10 came from tennis.)

Eleven athletes surpassed $10 million in earnings this year, according to Forbes estimates—the first time there have been more than eight—and 17 members of the ranking’s top 20 are under 30 years old. In fact, the median age is just 26—meaning these athletes’ best years may still be ahead of them.