Highest Paid Female Athletes 2025: Why are track and field stars not making the list?

Despite being at the forefront of track and field's most endorsed athletes, sprint queens Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Sha'Carri Richardson for another year, didn't make the list of the Top 15 highest-paid female athletes in 2025, which is again dominated by Tennis star Coco Gauff.

According to Sportico, the 15 top-earning female athletes in 2025 include 10 tennis players, up from nine last year, plus a pair of golfers and one each from basketball (Caitlin Clark), gymnastics (Simone Biles), and skiing (Eileen Gu).

Coco Gauff leads the way for the third straight year with $31 million, a tick ahead of her rival Aryna Sabalenka ($30 million), who is the fourth woman in sports to earn more than $30 million in a given year, after Naomi Osaka, Serena Williams, and Gauff.

The top 15 earned an estimated $249 million this year from prize money, salaries, bonuses, and endorsements, representing a 12% increase. All 15 earned at least $10 million, versus 11 last year and six in 2023. The $10.1 million cutoff to crack the list is up from $6.7 million in 2024.

A simple question but complicated in getting answers, considering the top demale athletes have some lucrative yearly endorsement deals and bonuses.

For context, McLaughlin-Levrone won the world 400m title and another gold medal in the 4x400m in Tokyo, has leading endorsement deals with New Balance and TAG Heuer, and recently signed as the new face of Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses.

Likewise, former world's fastest woman Sha'Carri Richardson - Nike's face of female athletics, is signed with top brands that include Whoop, Turtle, Sprite, and she is one of the three advisor owners for Alexis Ohanian's lucrative ATHLOS women-only track league in 2026, that comes with its financial benefits.   

Another good example is Gabby Thomas, who won three gold medals at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Her list of brand endorsements includes: New Balance, Toyota, and she is also an advisor owner in the ATHLOS League for 2026.

While Gauff’s most lucrative endorsement deal is with New Balance, the top-ranked American player has a deep endorsement roster of more than a dozen partners that also includes Baker Tilly, Bose, Head, Rolex, Mercedes-Benz, and Chase Bank.

Basketball star Caitlin Clark missed 70% of the Indiana Fever’s games during the WNBA season as she struggled with injuries. But it was another record year off the court for the star guard, who ranked sixth at $16.1 million, up four spots from 2024. She earned just $119,000 in W playing salary and bonuses.

But her endorsement partners during her first W season helped boost her off-court income from $11 million in 2024 to an estimated $16 million in 2025. She also signed new partnerships with Ascension St. Vincent and Stanley.

If track and field stars have several top endorsement deals like their sports counterparts, then why aren't they making the Top 15 highest-paid female athletes list? Or are they signing meagre amounts compared to them?  

The 15 highest-paid women represent seven different countries and skew young, with seven of them under 25. Their earnings include prize money, salaries, and bonuses, which McLaughlin-Levrone, for instance, had impressive amounts of in 2025.

While many may argue that track and field is not at the forefront of American sports, as McLaughlin-Levrone recently shared, thus making the financial allocation perhaps smaller, there is a counterargument in the fact that it is the most popular sport during the Olympics, and so should be awarded more respect when rewarding the athletes that propel it on and off it.

It remains to be seen which track athlete will eventually break into the list of the highest-paid female athletes in the coming years. Until then, it might be time for the current stars to enhance their negotiation skills with their present and potential brand sponsors.