Naomi Osaka tops Forbes rich list for female athletes with US$37.4 million earnings
- Japanese tennis star eclipses Maria Sharapova’s 2015 benchmark of US$29.7 million, earning US$1.4 million more than Serena Williams
- Face of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics still only No 29 on Forbes’ top 100 highest-earning athletes with US$37.4 million
Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka has set a record for 12-month earnings by a female athlete according to a report from forbes.com ahead of their annual sporting rich list.
Osaka earned US$37.4 million across the year, out-earning 23-time grand slam champion Serena Williams by US$1.4 million and eclipsing fellow tennis star Maria Sharapova’s previous record of US$29.7 million set in 2015.
However, top-earning woman Osaka is only 29th on the 100 highest paid athlete list, which will be announced this week. Williams, ranked 33, had been the highest earning female for the last four years.
Since 2012 only Sharapova, Williams, China’s Li Na – the first Asian to win a slam – and now Osaka have been included in any of the annual top 100 earners.
Tennis has long been the way for female athletes to make the list, with the highest-paid woman on the annual rankings a tennis player since Forbes started tracking in 1990.
Forbes credited Osaka’s decision to represent Japan ahead of the Tokyo Olympics as one of the reasons for the huge jump in earnings.
Several Olympic sponsors have signed her up, including Procter & Gamble, All Nippon Airways and noodle giant Nissin.
Her other partners include sportswear brand Nike and Yonex racquets. She became the first tennis player other than Li Na to be allowed to display other brands logos on her Nike outfits when she signed with them in 2019.
Osaka won her first slam at the US Open in 2018 and then the Australian Open last year. The former world No 1 has dropped to 10 in the WTA rankings.
“I am really interested in the business side of my career,” Osaka told the Nikkei Asian Review in an interview earlier this month. “Most of the time athletes wait until the end of their career to do this, but I think it makes sense to be smart about my business from early on.”
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