In 2022, Forbes ranked Iga Switek as the fifth highest-paid female tennis player. She earned $14.9 million in 2022. Swiatek was only behind Naomi Osaka, Serena Williams, skier Eileen Gu, and Emma Raducanu in earnings.
But the numbers don’t tell the whole story. More than $9.9 million of her $14.9 million earnings came from on-court earnings. Only about $5 million came from endorsements.
That’s disappointing for a player who dominated the tour in 2022 winning two grand slam titles. She was on a 37-match winning streak at one point during the year. She became the first player to collect 11,000 rankings points since Serena Williams in 2013.
Swiatek is aware that she should be making more money from sponsorships. She said:
I’m glad to see that ranking. Money isn’t my motivation but the tricky thing is I earned it really on the court and other players earned it mostly from endorsements so there’s a difference, I feel I can still expand my business a bit.
There are many reasons why Swiatek’s off-court earnings are low. She is not very marketable. Coming from Poland doesn’t open up opportunities for endorsements like other countries with bigger economies. Emma Raducanu, who had a very disappointing year, managed to earn more money than Swiatek. Almost all of Raducanu’s earnings came from endorsements.
In September 2022, Swiatek signed up with IMG, a titan in the talent agency space. We will have to see if IMG can get her high-profile endorsements that will increase her off-court earnings.
