Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka top Forbes list of highest paid female athletes
Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka top Forbes list, The Highest-Paid Female Athletes 2019.
Number one on the court, number two with the cash.
Tennis phenom Naomi Osaka broke the internet when she beat Serena Williams at the US Open and now, she’s breaking the bank as the second-highest-paid female athlete.
According to the Forbes list of The Highest-Paid Female Athletes 2019, Osaka’s got game in more ways than one. Her money game is on point, and she’s grossed a staggering $24.3 million in the past year, according to the magazine and is only second to her idol Serena Williams.
— Naomi Osaka wins Australian Open, becomes first Asian No. 1 Player—
Williams tops the list at number due to her many mega endorsements deals with Nike, Gatorade, Beats, and JP Morgan, to name a few.
Osaka has landed deals with Mastercard, All Nippon Airways, Nissan and Procter & Gamble, the outlet reports. She reportedly bagged an estimated $16 million from the past year and her prospects from this year look just as financially promising.
In April, Osaka inked a multimillion-dollar deal with Nike.
The Haitian-Japanese tennis star who was ranked number two by the Women’s Tennis Association is unstoppable and last month she explained just why winning is literally a matter of survival.
In the latest issue of Allure, the 21-year-old confesses that what drives her to dominate in her sport is the fact that she literally has no backup plan.
“My parents weren’t exactly the richest, so what am I going to do?” she asks rhetorically in the cover story interview. “I’m not really the smartest. I’ve been playing tennis my whole life, you know? So there’s nothing I can imagine myself doing. It’s either I have to be the best or I’m going to be homeless.”
— One month after win against Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka says ‘the hype’ has her stressed—
While some people take pride in being talented, Osaka is clear that talent on its own simply isn’t enough, stating, “There’s a certain point where talent isn’t useful anymore, and from there you’ve just got to want to win more than everyone else.”
“I think that’s something I noticed from an early age, so that’s what I’ve been fortunate with,” she continued. “I mean, the way that I grew up and the circumstances that sort of surrounded me kind of forced me to think that way.”
