Messi, Osaka: Wage gap between highest-paid male and female athletes revealed

It was established earlier this year that tennis stars Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams are the only two women in the top-100 highest-paid athletes in the world.

The pair featured in Sportico’s ranking, which listed basketball icon LeBron James as the highest earning athlete.

Osaka, who has equity in more than a dozen brands and endorsement deals with Nissan, Tag Heuer and Louis Vuitton, was ranked 20th.

Williams, who owns a venture capital firm and has long-standing partnerships with Pepsi, Gatorade and Aston Martin, was 52nd on the list.

A new study from SportsPro, using data from Forbes, has now compared the disparity between the top five highest-paid male and female athletes.

In SportsPro’s list, Paris Saint-Germain star Lionel Messi was named as the highest earner, making $130 million (£108 million) over the past 12 months.

This is in comparison to the $59.2m (£49.3m) earned by Osaka, meaning there is a 119.6 percentage increase between her pay and Messi’s.

Male vs female top 3 highest paid athletes. https://t.co/HsPILN1WSw pic.twitter.com/6hveeDTkft

The second highest-paid male athlete is James, who took home $121.2m (£101m). This is a 167.6 percentage increase on the $45.3m (£37.7m) earned by the second highest-paid female athlete, Williams.

Unfortunately, the percentage increase between the highest-paid male and female athletes gets greater as SportsPro moves down the list.

There is a 917.7 percentage increase between the third highest-paid male and female athletes – Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Venus Williams.

Ronaldo earned $115m (£95.8m) over the past 12 months, while Williams received $11.3m (£9.4m).

The fourth highest-paid male and female athletes are footballer Neymar and four-time Olympic