Only woman among the top 50 highest-paid athletes in the world is...

The list of the top 50 highest-paid athletes in the world is dominated by players in football (soccer), American sports basketball, football and baseball, followed by tennis and golf. While the top three highest earners are football players, basketball has the most names at 15 in the top 50. 49 of the 50 are men, with only one woman among the best paid: Serena Williams. 

Interestingly, the younger Williams sister has not graced the tennis court in nearly 10 months. Yet she has been able to keep her tag as the highest paid woman in the world. 41-year-old Serena Williams is widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time. The 23-time Grand Slam winner held the number one rank for a whopping 319 weeks in her career. She is the only player in the Open Era to achieve a career Golden Slam in both singles and doubles tennis. 

Serena Williams retired from professional Tennis in September last year. However, she is still the highest earning woman athlete in the world with total earnings of $45.3 million. Of these, just $0.3 million came from on-field earnings and winnings. Serena pocketed majority $45 million from her off-field earnings with brand endorsements for the likes of Anheuser-Busch InBev, Audemars Piguet, Nike, Gucci, Gatorade, Ford Motors, Walt Disney, Wilson, Remy Cointreau, Block Inc, AbbVie, DoorDash and Tonal. 

Apart from Tennis and brand endorsements, Serena has an investment company called Serena Ventures, a pain relief, muscle and skin care startup called Will Perform, a multimedia company Nine Two Six Productions and holds a stake in American football team Miami Dolphins. Serena has earned over $95 million in life-time on-field winnings.