Professional athletes should have the opportunity to get wealthy. That is why they play the sport they do, and if they do so at a high level, then they deserve to make the money they do. If one worked as an insurance agent and was excellent at that then they would also deserve to make more money than those lesser beings of their profession.
Athletes have another bit to take into context, though. For instance, Serena Williams is one of the best tennis players ever, but her net worth is probably going to be less than Lionel Messi. Well, not probably. It is. That is because the world of football (or in some parts of the world, soccer) is larger than tennis. We do not want it to be that way, but it is.
To be fair, football/soccer is great. It's not better than tennis, though. Tennis is the greatest sport that human beings could ever conceive of.
Only two tennis players rank in the top 100 of money earned among professional athletes in 2024
We wish that the current tennis gods, such as Aryna Sabalenka, Jannik Sinner, Iga Swiatek, and Carlos Alcaraz, were making more than any other athlete in the world, That is not the case, though, and it's not even close. At least, not according to a recent article by Sportico.
According to the site that has collected the wages and endorsements earned by professional athletes, and has done so for a vast number of years, the first tennis player for 2024 in terms of how much they made does not show up until number 43. That is Sinner, who earned a reported $52.3 million last year.
How he did some of that is fairly easy. He won the Australian Open and the US Open, along with the ATP Finals and the exhibition Six Kings Slam. The Italian also earned $27 million in endorsements.
The next-best as far as tennis players go was Carlos Alcaraz at number 87 who earned $40.4 million, but he actually out-earned Sinner in endorsements. The Spaniard made $30 million of his money through sponsorships.
No other tennis player ranked in the top 100. This is compared to golf, which had nine players rank in the top 100. Does this mean tennis needs to be better at marketing and growing its sport than an individual sport like golf? Yep. But whether the people in charge of tennis can do that or not is in question.