Executive Summary
Tennis leads professional sports in gender pay parity, with all four Grand Slams offering equal prize money since 2007. Wimbledon 2025 allocates £3 million to both men's and women's champions from its record £53.5 million prize pool. Nine of the top 15 highest-paid female athletes globally play tennis.
Yet tennis remains an outlier. Beyond Grand Slams, significant pay gaps persist. Women athletes earn 21 times less than men on average across sports and receive only 10% of sponsorship dollars despite driving twice the social media engagement.
Tennis demonstrates both the commercial upside of institutional parity and structural limitations that persist even in leading sports.
Grand Slam Equality Sets a Global Benchmark
All four Grand Slam tournaments now offer equal prize money, culminating a 52-year movement sparked by Billie Jean King's 1972 ultimatum. The U.S. Open led the way in 1973, followed by the Australian Open (2001), French Open (2006), and Wimbledon (2007). In 2024, the combined Grand Slam prize pool exceeded $254 million, distributed evenly between men and women.
Wimbledon 2025 offers £3 million to each singles champion, up 11.1% vs. 2024, and a record-setting £53.5 million purse. Tennis remains the only major global sport with systemic pay equity at its premier events.
Tour-Level Disparities Persist
Beyond Grand Slams, however, pay equality diminishes. For example, while featuring identical men's and women's 3-set match formats, the 2024 Cincinnati Open allocated $6.8M to men and $3.2M to women; the 2023 Italian Open distributed $8.4M to men and $3.9M to women, despite lacking a traditional 'duration-based' justification. At lower level tournaments, pay disparities are greater.
Likewise, at the player level, an earnings gap persists. In 2024, the top 10 men collectively earned $80.7M while women realized $57.4M, a 41% gap similar to that of a decade ago.
The WTA has approved a plan to reach full parity by 2033, with combined 500- and 1000-level events to achieve equality by 2027. Until then, tour-level disparities will continue with substantial gender wage gaps outside premier events.
Even When TV Audiences Favor Women, Media Focuses on Men
US Open women's finals have outperformed men's finals in television viewership for five of the past seven years, with the 2018 women's final attracting 3.1 million viewers, 50% higher than the men's final.
Even when women attract bigger television audiences, media coverage devotes more attention to men. For example, in a TV and media study of the four 2018 Grand Slams, Signal AI reported an average TV audience of 2.58M for women's finals vs. 2.44M for men's finals across the four events. However, analysis of news media coverage (250K news pieces in 80+ languages over 12 month period) revealed roughly 37% coverage devoted to women versus 63% to men across the 4 Grand Slam singles events.
This skewed media attention and disproportionate visibility directly impacts sponsorship opportunities and commercial revenue. Tennis prize money aside, Wasserman research indicates, on average, men earn 21x more than women on the field of play. This means women are more heavily reliant on endorsements, with +80% income generated off the field of play, vs. +35% for men. Notably, 90% of partnership dollars are directed to men, despite women driving 2x social media follower engagement, spotlighting systematic undervaluation in the endorsement market.
Tennis: A Commercial Sports Outlier
Tennis pay equity achievements remain rare in a sports economy that overwhelmingly favors men. Per Deloitte, women's sports generated $1.8B in 2024, amid a roughly $500B global professional sports market, representing less than half a percent share of total.
Media coverage mirrors these gaps. Over a 30-year span (1989-2019), women's sports received just 5% of total sports media attention, dropping to 3.5% when excluding FIFA events. Digital platforms have improved this somewhat: recent figures show women's sports now see 15% overall, with greater media coverage on digital, streaming, and social platforms versus traditional broadcast TV coverage of years past.
Tennis outpaces these benchmarks. In 2025, no women appeared on Forbes' list of world's 50 highest-paid athletes, yet seven of the top 10 highest-paid female athletes play tennis, a stark indicator of both the sport's comparative progress and systemic limits for female athletes seeking to monetize talents like their male counterparts.
Market Implications
Tennis offers a model that can be replicated in other sports: institutional commitment and investment in promotional parity, with commercial returns once frameworks are established.
The WTA's timeline to tour-level parity by 2033 offers investors and sponsors a clear horizon. Early positioning can capture upside as commercial terms begin to reflect audience realities.
Coco Gauff's 2024 earnings, $30.4M total including $21M via endorsements, illustrate the commercial potential for brands that recognize the ROI of audience engagement and significant upside women athletes offer. Yet few sponsors have adjusted spending accordingly.
Bottom Line
Tennis demonstrates both the commercial upside of institutional parity and structural limitations that persist even in a sport leading the way.
Women's sports revenue is projected to grow 240% over the next four years; tennis offers a strategic roadmap but not a short cut. The huge opportunity is real, but entrenched institutional norms require systemic change and modernization to realize new commercial markets.