Forbes’ list of the world’s 50 highest-paid athletes for 2026 features zero women for the third straight year, underscoring a worrying financial gap between men and women in professional sports.
Soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo led the list for the fourth straight year with estimated earnings of $300 million. Mexican boxer Saúl ‘Canelo’ Álvarez followed with $170 million and soccer star Lionel Messi came in third with $140 million.
Los Angeles Lakers player LeBron James was fourth with $137.8 million, while Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani took the fifth position with over $127 million. In all, Forbes said top-ranked men’s tennis player Jannik Sinner set the list’s cutoff at $54.6 million in income over the past 12 months.
This year’s list features athletes representing 18 countries and eight sports, with the largest coming from basketball.
Unfortunately, no woman athlete made the list. Tennis star Coco Gauff led Forbes’ most recent ranking of the world’s highest-paid female athletes with an estimated $33 million in 2025 earnings. However, that figure would fall more than $20 million short of the cutoff for 2026’s 50 highest-paid athletes overall, as reported by Forbes.
Curiously, since 2012, only five women have made the list of the 50 highest-paid athletes overall, with Serena Williams the last female athlete to make the list in 2023, with an estimated income of $45.3 million. The other female athletes, who are all tennis players, are Maria Sharapova, Li Na and Naomi Osaka, whose $60 million in 2021 is still an earnings record for a female athlete, according to Forbes.
The difference in pay between men’s and women’s athletes is also based on how much revenue the respective leagues make.
While the WNBA is making an annual average of $281 million over its 11-year national media rights agreements, the NBA is bringing in almost $7 billion a year from its media rights deals, according to Forbes.
There are also differences in base salaries, as the $137.8 million earned by NBA’s highest-paid player, LeBron James, from his playing contract and business ventures, represents 11 times the total earnings of Caitlin Clark, the highest-paid women’s basketball player, who brought in $12.1 million in 2025.
For this year’s list of the world’s highest-paid athletes, Forbes tracked income earned between May 1, 2025, and May 1, 2026, based on conversations with industry executives, agents and other insiders.
It evaluated on-field earnings, including salaries, bonuses, and prize money, as well as earnings from off-field, including endorsements, licensing, and memorabilia.