How CoCo Gauff Became the World’s Highest-Paid Female Athlete at Just 21 Years Old!

While some athletes are content with just winning trophies, professional tennis play Coco Gauff has spent 2025 proving she knows exactly how to build an empire– and how to get to the bag. From taking greater ownership of her career by launching Coco Gauff Enterprises to securing a massive global ambassadorship with Mercedes-Benz, she has spent the last year meticulously diversifying her portfolio at just 21 years old.

And now, the two-time Grand Slam champion was just named the highest-paid female athlete this year by Forbes!

Gauff took home a total $33 million this past year, which is the fourth-highest dollar total for a female athlete ever. She trails behind fellow tennis superstars Naomi Osaka’s ($57.3 million) and Serena Williams’ ($45.9 million) 2021 totals, and her own $34.4 million that she made in 2022. In 2023, Gauff led the list with $22.7 million.

According to the report, $8 million of Gauff’s coins were earned on the court, including her French Open in June. The remaining $25 million of her earnings came from endorsements off the court. Here’s a breakdown of Gauff’s endorsement portfolio.

Gauff has a long-standing partnership with New Balance, signing her first deal when she was 14 years old. With the Coco CG1 and CG2, she is one of the few active tennis players to have their own signature footwear line. She also has a major deal with Head, endorsing their Boom racket series.

She is also one of the faces for Bose, appearing in several campaigns for their QuietComfort headphones and earbuds. Gauff also has partnerships with Meta and Ray-Ban to promote their smart glasses and has collaborative deals with American Eagle, Miu Miu, and the hair care brand Carol’s Daughter.

This year, Gauff inked a deal to be a global brand ambassador for Mercedes-Benz, and she has a multi-year partnership with Rolex, as one of the brand’s primary faces in the sporting world.

Additionally, Gauff is slated to develop TV shows, movies, and digital content in partnership with the studio Religion of Sports, launched her own management firm Coco Gauff Enterprises and is an investor in Unrivaled, the professional 3-on-3 women’s basketball league.

Although Gauff is doing exceptionally well, she is not afraid to raise her voice about the wage gap that’s deeply entrenched in the world of sports between female and male athletes. In 2025, top male athletes made an estimated $674 million on the field of play, more than triple the women’s compensation at $212 million. 

“Sometimes there are female players who are selling out some of these stadiums more than some of the other guys who are getting paid way more,” Gauff told Forbes this fall. “I think combined [WTA and ATP] events, when you look at it objectively, it doesn’t make a lot of sense why the pay gap is that large.”

Other Black athletes to make the list this year was fellow tennis star Naomi Osaka at $12.5 million. Osaka took home approximately $2.5 million in winnings on the court. Off the court, she has a long-term deal with Nike, a racket partnership with Yonex and sponsorships with Louis Vuitton, TAG Heuer, Beats by Dre, Mastercard, Panasonic, Workday, and the mental health platform Modern Health.

WNBA all-star Angel Reese earned $9.4 million, and of that amount, approximately $9 million stems from her off-court ventures. She has a multi-year partnership with Reebok, becoming the brand’s first major NIL signing, and recently extended her deal to include her first signature shoe, the Angel Reese 1. Reese also has partnerships with The Hershey Company, McDonald’s, Beats by Dre, Revolve, Miu Miu, Calvin Klein, Amazon and Airbnb.

Track and Field phenom Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone earned a reported $8.2 million, with $8 million of her income generated from endorsements. She has a long-term partnership with New Balance, which earns her an estimated $1.5 million annually. In 2025, the brand released the “Syd Collection,” which features signature performance gear such as the FuelCell SuperComp MD-X v3 track spikes and lifestyle footwear like the Syd Collection 9060 sneakers.  McLaughlin-Levrone also has partnerships with TAG Heuer, Neutrogena and Gatorade.