How Much Money Has Serena Williams Made Throughout Her Career?
On August 9, 2022, tennis star Serena Williams announced that she would be retiring from the sport after the U.S. Open, scheduled to run from the end of August until the middle of September (via Vogue). "I've been reluctant to admit that I have to move on from playing tennis. It's like a taboo topic. It comes up, and I start to cry. I think the only person I've really gone there with is my therapist," she said in announcing her upcoming retirement at the age of 41.
The list of accomplishments credited to Serena and her sister, Venus, cannot be overstated. Rather than get into the specifics of her records, we'll just point to the broader summary provided by Bleacher Report: "The Williams sisters were big, powerful, athletic women who grew to dominate women's tennis and change the game forever," wrote reporter JA Allen.
In her decades in the game, Serena also made bank — tens of millions, by some estimates. Like a lot of professional athletes, her income came from multiple sources, including prize money from the tournaments to money from sponsorships to money from her own business ventures.
She has reportedly made $94.5 million from her tennis career
Unlike, say, in baseball or soccer, an athlete in an individual sport doesn't draw a salary from an account managed by a team. The St. Louis Cardinals' first baseman, for example, will get the same amount of money in each paycheck during the duration of his contract, regardless of how well he performs on the field (putting aside trivialities such as bonuses and incentives and such). A player in an individual sport, however, is largely on their own — at least, when it comes to the game itself (sponsorships and endorsements are another matter). If you place in the money in the tournament, you take home a check; if not, you go home broke.
It's difficult to parse someone's bank account, in particular when the entire process is based on speculation. Nevertheless, according to Celebrity Net Worth, Serena Williams is worth approximately $250 million — a staggering sum for an athlete in a sport that's not a top-tier sport like baseball or football. Strictly from a tennis standpoint, Serena's career earnings, as of June 2022, amounted to $94.5 million, a figure provided by the Women's Tennis Association, per The Sporting News.
Endorsements And Other Business Ventures
Rare is the marquee professional athlete whose income is limited strictly to what they earn on the field (in a manner of speaking), and Serena Williams is no exception. As mentioned above, her net worth is estimated to be in the neighborhood of a quarter of a billion, but her earnings from tennis proper amounted to about $95 million. Where did the other $150 million or so come from? Endorsements, mostly, as well as a few of her own business ventures.
Like Michael Jordan and multiple others before her, Serena had/has multiple sponsorship and endorsement deals, including a rather huge one from the biggest sporting-goods manufacturer of them all, Nike. According to Forbes, she's also been affiliated with AbbVie, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Audemars Piguet, Block Inc, DIRECTV, Inc., Ford Motor, Gatorade, Gucci, Hanesbrands, Nike, Subway, Tonal, and Wilson Sporting Goods. Further still, she earns some amount of money — although it's not clear how much — via social media. She's also invested, has funded business ventures, and has a "super-strong" cryptocurrency investment, according to The Sporting News.