Forbes list highlights equity divide

Parents, let your daughters grow up to be tennis players.

That’s the lesson of the recently released Forbes list of the most highly paid female athletes. Twelve of the top 15 are tennis players, led — or, more accurately, lapped — by Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka.

Williams’ total earnings last year came in at $29.2 million. Osaka, who burst on the scene last year with a U.S. Open win, was second with $24.3 million. Then the list drops off a cliff: Angelique Kerber came in third with earnings of $11.8 million.

You have to go all the way down to No. 12 to find a nontennis player and a teamsport athlete. That’s United States soccer player Alex Morgan, the Cal alum who posted earnings of $5.8 million. Almost all of that comes in endorsements; Morgan’s salary is listed at $250,000.

Morgan, of course, is the lead plaintiff in a genderequity lawsuit filed against U.S. Soccer. But there is little gender equity in the world of sports. The Forbes list of male athletes, released in June, starts with Lionel Messi at $127 million total earnings. In the No. 12 slot, occupied by Morgan on the women’s list, is Ben Roethlisberger at $55.5 million.

Most of the toppaid male athletes play team sports: European soccer, the NFL and the NBA. In the men’s top 10, the only individualsport athletes are boxer Canelo Alvarez (No. 4 at $94 million) and tennis player Roger Federer (No. 5 at $93.4 million). The women’s professional leagues are still in their nascent stages, and athletes in the WNBA and NWSL often have to supplement their salaries by playing backtoback seasons in more than one league to make a livable wage.

The evidence that the genderequity fight is worth continuing lies within the Forbes list. After all, tennis players were the first female athletes to push for equal pay, beginning with Billie Jean King back in the early 1970s. Her fight for equal prize money at the U.S. Open worked, and over the years, prize money in other Grand Slams became equal.

The woman who, more than any other today, has carried on King’s legacy is Venus Williams. She comes in tied for No. 10 at $5.9 million. And, of course, her little sister is at the top of the list.

The lesson: keep fighting. And pick up a racket.