There Isn’t a Single Female on Forbes’ Top 100 Highest Paid Athletes List
But hey, there aren't any hockey players on the list either!
In an attempt to get everyone to look up from their iPhones and engage in conversation, I recently posed this question to a group of friends: “Would you rather be a super rich CEO or a super rich professional athlete?” I wasn’t expecting it to be a divisive topic, but the prompt led to a pretty heated conversation about work/life balance. Personally, I think professional athletes are worth every cent they make. There’s no amount of money I would accept in exchange for eight hour workouts and strict diets of chicken breast and bone broth à la Tom Brady.
What I mean by this is, I have a lot of respect for everyone on Forbes’s highest-paid athletes list. I am disappointed, however, to learn that not a single female athlete was ranked. Much like movies, music and every other professional industry, the gender wage gap appears to be alive and well in sports, even though female athletes devote their lives to gruelling training and hardcore diets for their respective sports, just like their male counterparts do.
Not even Serena Williams, the only woman on the list last year with a reported salary of $28.9 million USD, made the cut. But I really don’t think that the tennis champ is too fazed by her drop off: in this past year, the BFF to Beyonce got married, had a child, won the French open, covered Vogue, and attended the royal wedding. What’d you do for fun, Floyd Mayweather? (With earnings of $285 million, he scored the top spot.)
In another somewhat shocking twist, not a single hockey player cracked the top 100 (though five golfers did). In the world of elite sports, it’s a pretty sad day for women and Canadians.
![](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://fashionmagazine.com/flare/celebrity/women-athletes-forbes-list/&title=There Isn’t a Single Female on <em>Forbes’</em> Top 100 Highest Paid Athletes List&picture=https://fashionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/GettyImages-966642614-800x533.jpg&description=In an attempt to get everyone to look up from their iPhones and engage in conversation, I recently posed this question to a group of friends: "Would you rather be a super rich CEO or a super rich professional athlete?" I wasn't expecting it to be a divisive topic, but the prompt led to a pretty heated conversation about work/life balance. Personally, I think professional athletes are worth every cent they make. There's no amount of money I would accept in exchange for eight hour workouts and strict diets of chicken breast and bone broth à la Tom Brady.
What I mean by this is, I have a lot of respect for everyone on Forbes’s highest-paid athletes list. I am disappointed, however, to learn that not a single female athlete was ranked. Much like movies, music and every other professional industry, the gender wage gap appears to be alive and well in sports, even though female athletes devote their lives to gruelling training and hardcore diets for their respective sports, just like their male counterparts do.
Not even Serena Williams, the only woman on the list last year with a reported salary of $28.9 million USD, made the cut. But I really don't think that the tennis champ is too fazed by her drop off: in this past year, the BFF to Beyonce got married, had a child, won the French open, covered Vogue, and attended the royal wedding. What'd you do for fun, Floyd Mayweather? (With earnings of $285 million, he scored the top spot.)
In another somewhat shocking twist, not a single hockey player cracked the top 100 (though five golfers did). In the world of elite sports, it's a pretty sad day for women and Canadians.){kind=link}