Figuring out the richest female athletes in the world is complicated. First of all, their salaries and earnings change all the time. They also depend on their success. The better they are, the more money they earn. The biggest factor is their sponsors, who are usually responsible for the majority of their earnings. One illusion is that female athletes cannot earn a lot of money. The same illusion applies to most famous gay athletes. The facts don’t support those theories, however.
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Firstly, we need to understand how these athletes earn money. The earnings from the winnings of a sport come two-fold – the winnings themselves and the endorsements that come as a result of the winnings. They payoff to be the top could, in fact, be a multiple of the winnings. According to Opendorse, Maria Sharapova earned $6 million thanks to her victories and $23 million from endorsements. Samsung, Nike, and Porsche make the biggest part of her income.
Forbes proved that sport that can make the biggest profit is tennis. In this case, female athletes can earn up to $30 million (pay) and additional $6 million from winnings. If we add aforementioned endorsements, we can understand why athletes earn a lot.
On the other side, the lives of female athletes aren’t easy. Is is the case for all athletes – they must be in the best shape, they must practice a lot and they must travel a lot. In essence, they don’t have a lot of time for a personal life. Also, injuries are common due to the fact they are constantly under physical stress.
Taking these factors into consideration, we used data from Baaghi and Success Story and additional details from Wxyz. The showed values are the average net worth of the athletes.
10. Yani Tseng
Worth: $6,100,000
She is a professional golf player from Taiwan. She started playing golf at age six. Today, she is one of the richest female athletes in the world. Her earnings continue to climb every year.
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9. Agnieszka Radwanska
Worth: $6,900,000
Agnieszka is a professional tennis player, born in Poland. She is a young and successful athlete with high expectations who has earned $6.8 million and has a sponsorship with Cheesecake Factory (interesting).
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8. Ana Ivanovic
Worth: $7,100,000
Ana Ivanovic is a professional tennis player from Serbia. She has endorsements that increase her wealth by $6 million, every year. She is known as the ‘’comeback kid’’. In addition, she has an endorsement deal with Adidas. This deal is for her lifetime!
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7. Kim Yuna
Worth: $9,000,000
Kim Yuna is a skater, best-known for representing South Korea in the Olympic Games in Sochi, where she won the silver medal. For that feat she earned $16.3 million.
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6. Victoria Azarenka
Worth: $9,700,000
Victoria is one of richest female athletes in the world thanks to the fact she earned $6.7 million last year. The Russian-Belarus athlete has a contract with Nike, so we can expect that she is going to be even richer in the future. In addition, she is well-known as one of the fastest ascending WTA athletes.
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5. Caroline Wozniacki
Worth: $12,850,000
Caroline Wozniacki is a WTA player from Denmark. She is best-known as one of the best players in the mentioned championship due to the fact she won the WTA Single title the most times (20 times).
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4. Danica Patrick
Worth: $14,000,000
Danica is well-known in the world of car racing. She has contracts with Sega and Coke. In addition, this US athlete is one of the best racing drivers in the world. Her contract with Stewart-Haas Racing will end next year.
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3. Li Na
Worth: $18,300,000
Li Na is best known for winning Grand Slam singles. She was the first player from Asia who managed to achieve this. Now she is the brand ambassador for Samsung, Mercedes and several other companies. In addition, she is one of the best Chinese athletes of all time.
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2. Serena Williams
Worth: $27,300,000
You’ve been hiding under a rock if you don’t know about this one. Serena Williams is the best-known tennis player on the planet. She won the Grand Slam and Wimbledon multiple times. You may know that she was born in Florida and that her father trained her from an early age.
1. Maria Sharapova
Worth: $28,050,000
Maria Sharapova has been one of the richest female athletes in the world for many years. In addition to her career earnings, she has a shoe brand, sponsored by Nike. This Russian tennis player will stay the richest female athlete for many years, thanks to successful career and business deals.
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