The 2023 US Open concluded with this marvelous back-to-the-future moment: Billie Jean King presenting Coco Gauff with the $3 million winner’s check.
“Thank you, Billie, for fighting for this,” said Gauff, a student of history, waving the envelope to the crowd.
A few weeks later, King looked back on that exchange and said, “For the first time in my life, I feel like I can breathe a little — or at least exhale for a little bit.”
It was King who was most instrumental in the formation of the Women’s Tennis Association and the long struggle for equal prize money. Earlier this week, those efforts continued to bear fruit in spectacular fashion.
According to Sportico.com, nine of the world’s 15 top-earning women athletes are members of the Hologic WTA Tour — including six of the top seven. Gauff, a 20-year-old American, tops the 2024 list, which combines prize money and estimated endorsements, with more than $30 million. Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka are the only two athletes to previously surpass that lofty threshold.
It was a breakout year for professional athletes across all women’s sports; 11 cleared the $10 million mark, compared to six the previous year. The top 15 athletes made a collective $221 million this year, an increase of 27 percent from 2023, according to Sportico’s report.
Gauff took home $9.4 million in winnings, more than half of it coming recently in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where she won the WTA Finals and collected $4.805 million. It was part of another record purse, more than $15 million. Gauff was also enriched by a dozen or so endorsement contracts, including New Balance, UPS, Head, Rolex and Bose.
Second on the list was American-born freestyle skier Eileen Gu, who won two gold medals competing for China at the 2022 Olympics in Beijing.
The next five were WTA players. A quick accounting:
No.3 Iga Swiatek — The 23-year-old from Poland won her fourth title at Roland Garros in five years and finished the year at No.2 in the PIF WTA Rankings with $8.4 million in winnings. Her total earnings were in excess of $21 million, including contracts with the Roger Federer-backed Swiss brand On, Lancome, Infosys, Visa and Lego.
Swiatek makes history with Lancome partnership
No.4 Zheng Qinwen — She became the first Asian player to win an Olympic gold medal in singles this summer in Paris. The 22-year-old from China was a finalist at the Australian Open and collected $5.6 million in prize money — $2.3 million coming…