The 10 highest-paid female athletes: Naomi Osaka is No. 1 again with over $57 million in earnings The Margin

By Weston Blasi

The coronavirus pandemic did not stall the earnings of female sports stars.

The 10 highest-earning female athletes made a combined $167 million before taxes in 2021, a 23% jump from 2020 levels, according to a new annual earnings list from Forbes ,

Interestingly, just one of the 10 athletes on the list made more money directly from her sport than she did “off the field.”

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Here is a list of the 10 highest-paid female athletes and how they made their money. The dollar figures below were calculated by Forbes.

10. Candace Parker, $5.7 million

The star of the WNBA’s Chicago Sky, Candace Parker, benefits from a lot of endorsement deals to counteract the fact that her WNBA salary is capped at $200,000 due to league rules. Parker has deals with Adidas /zigman2/quotes/206448829/delayed XE:ADS +1.98% , Capital One /zigman2/quotes/226519535/composite COF.PRL +1.18% and CarMax /zigman2/quotes/204412041/composite KMX +7.19% .

Parker also works as an NBA analyst for Turner Sports.

Parker’s earnings from the past year were $200,000 on the court, and $5.5 million off the court.

9. Nelly Korda, $5.9 million

Korda, one of the LPGA’s star golfers, won her first major at the Women’s PGA Championship.

Korda benefits from several sponsorships, including Hanwha Q Cells, a manufacturer of solar cells, and UKG, a tech company focused on workforce management, according to Forbes .

Korda’s earnings from the past year were $2.4 million on the course, and $3.5 million off the course.

8. Ashleigh Barty, $6.9 million

Barty is the only athlete on this list who made more money from playing her sport than she did through other endeavors.

She was the highest-earning woman based on from tennis tournament winnings in 2021.

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Barty’s earnings from the past year were $3.9 million on the court, and $3 million off the court.

7. P.V. Sindhu, $7.2 million

Perhaps not a household name in the U.S., Sindhu is a 26-year-old badminton star from India. Sindhu has medaled in each of the last two Olympics Games.

Sindhu has over 3 million followers on Instagram , and has lucrative sponsorship deals with ed-tech giant Byju’s and used-car platform Spinny, in addition to partners like Li-Ning sportswear and India’s Bank of Baroda, according to Forbes.

Sindhu’s earnings from the past year were $200,000 on the court, and $7 million off it.

6. Jin Young Ko, $7.5 million

Golf star Jin Young Ko has been one of the top earning women’s golfers for years. The South Korean golfer won the CME group Tour Championship last year, netting $1.5 million for that tournament alone.

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