Even with all the strides made by women’s sports, the gender pay gap is somehow widening. 

The 2025 Sportico top 100 highest-paid athletes list did not include any women, with Coco Gauff missing out on the $37.5M cutoff to break into the top 100. Similarly, in 2024, no women made the top-100 list.

That wasn’t the case when Serena Williams was running roughshod over the tennis world. The American icon made the top 50 list every year from 2010 to 2018 and remained in the top 100 in 2021 and 2022, despite entering very few tournaments. 

One of a kind

We now have more evidence that crowns Williams as a true oddity in a male-dominating sporting world.

Sportico’s new list of the 50 highest-paid athletes of all time has Williams standing tall as the sole woman, coming in at No. 40 ahead of legends such as Kevin Garnett, Evander Holyfield and Andre Agassi.