Over the last 12 months, rising tennis star Naomi Osaka made $37.4 million to surpass Serena Williams as the world’s highest-paid female athlete.
The 22-year-old raked in $1.4 million more than Williams in prize money and endorsements, setting an all-time earnings record for a female athlete in a single year, according to Forbes. Maria Sharapova set the previous record when she earned $29.7 million in 2015. Williams had been the world’s highest-paid female athlete each of the past four years.
Williams and Osaka are the only women to make the ranks of the Forbes’ 2020 list of the world’s 100 highest-paid athletes. Osaka has endorsement deals with brands Nike, BodyArmor, Nissan, MasterCard, Shiseido, Yonex and Hyperice.
yo. pic.twitter.com/XjOHf0h42n
— NaomiOsaka大坂なおみ (@naomiosaka) May 25, 2020
A body in motion is destined for great things, and getting better never felt so good. Here’s to the athlete in all of us. Keep moving. @TeamJuJu @naomiosaka @steeple_squigs @91Tavares pic.twitter.com/qD72WNU2Am
— Hypericeusa (@HypericeUSA) May 24, 2020
A dual citizen, Osaka was going to represent Japan instead of the United States at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo before the Games were postponed to 2021. That choice made her an even hotter commodity for Olympic sponsors than she already was.
“To those outside the tennis world, Osaka is a relatively fresh face with a great back story,” David Carter, a sports business professor at USC’s Marshall School of Business, told Forbes. “Combine that with being youthful and bicultural, two attributes that help her resonate with younger, global audiences, and the result is the emergence of a global sports marketing icon.”
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