Simone Biles isn’t just an athlete—she’s a legend. She’s the face of American gymnastics, a global icon, and arguably the greatest of all time. Yet, with all her Olympic medals, world records, and sponsorships, her reported $11 million in annual earnings pales in comparison to what many male athletes rake in. Shocking, right? Let’s dive deep into this uncomfortable but necessary conversation about why Simone Biles’ multimillion-dollar earnings highlight a much bigger problem in women’s sports.
Simone Biles — the most decorated gymnast in history, a global icon, and a relentless advocate for mental health and gender equality — just got a $28.5 million reminder of how the world still sees female athletes. To sum up her listing on the Forbes’ list of highest-paid female athletes, lets say– so close, yet so far!
The message was clear, there’s still plenty to worry about in women’s sports even in 2025. Last year when the list of the top 10 highest-paid female athletes was released by Forbes, and Simone Biles was included. She’d ranked 10th, thanks to her $11.2M earnings that year. But she, or for that matter, any woman player, remained absent from the combined list of the world’s highest-paid athletes. Today, it’s been a year since that, and it looks like nothing has changed.
Fast forward to May 2025, Forbes has again released its list of the highest-paid athletes of this year. And once again, Cristiano Ronaldo topped it, for the third year in a row. Alongside were names like Steph Curry, Tyson Fury, and Dak Prescott. But surprisingly, for the second consecutive year, no woman, including Simone Biles, lands among the world’s 50 highest-paid athletes.
To answer the question why– the cutoff for 2025’s top 50 athletes is set at $53.6 million, which is a 19% jump from the $45.2 million required to make the list last year. And Simone Biles‘ earnings, $11M, which she made till December 2024, are still way too less to match this bar. Now this will be irrespective of her medals, her sponsorships, or her net worth. Yes, as of 2025, sources deem her net worth to be around an approximate $25 M. Even with that, she’s nowhere near the bar.
This ain’t it. Simone Biles has a number of endorsement deals with brands like Visa, Uber Eats, K18, Tide, and sponsors like Athleta and Nike. Still, it isn’t enough to match the male athletes, who earn $100-$275 million annually. Therefore, not just Simone Biles, but no other athletes like Coco Gauff, Caitlin Clarke, etc, have featured on that list yet. This time, it’s not even gymnastics that held her back, because even the top tennis and basketball women stars have missed the cut. Thus, women’s sports continue to be largely overlooked.
Simone Biles earning $11 million is a paradox: an elite, once-in-a-generation athlete, underpaid because she’s in a sport (and gender) that society still undervalues. Until we all treat women’s sports with the same seriousness as men’s, the gap will remain.
