Serena Wiliams and Alex Morgan are amongst the top 10 most marketable athletes in the world, according to sports industry news outlet SportsPro.

Williams is the second-most marketable athlete in the world behind men’s soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, while Morgan sits in eighth. Other USWNT players on the list of 50 athletes include Megan Rapinoe (No. 27) and Becky Sauerbrunn (No. 40).

Williams and Morgan are joined in the top 10 by soccer star Sam Kerr (No. 9) and tennis star Naomi Osaka (6th). U.S. Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, British tennis player Emma Raducanu and Spanish soccer player Alexia Putellas sit just outside the top 10, in 11th, 12th and 13th, respectively.

Athletes on the list were ranked based on three scoring components: brand strength, economics and audience. While social media following and reach are considered, so are their social impact, charitable endeavors and influence.

“Marketability can be defined in many ways, but what’s clear from our in-depth assessment is that each of the athletes in this year’s diverse list delivers considerable value to their brand partners,” SportsPro editorial director Michael Long said. “Not only are the athletes elite, highly visible performers in their respective sports, their individual reach and influence and, in many cases, willingness to speak out on social issues positions them as ideal ambassadors for companies seeking to communicate authentically to consumers.”

Williams received an overall score of 67.99, while Morgan received a score of 48.07. Kerr was right behind Morgan with a score of 48.01.

This comes after Morgan led women’s sports in endorsement deals in 2022 with 27 total endorsements. Williams came just behind her with 26 deals.

Nike has unveiled the Serena Williams Building, a one million-square-foot space at the company’s world headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon.

The structure houses 200,000 square feet of lab space for Nike’s Consumer Creation teams to test new ideas and develop products.

“The whole building takes your breath away. Every element, everywhere you go, is an opportunity to be inspired. I hope this building encourages people to bring out the best of themselves and to dream bigger than they thought possible,” Serena Williams said in a statement.

The Serena Williams Building also includes 140,000 square feet of showrooms and workspace, a footwear materials library, a color lab and a 140-seat Olympia Theater, named after Williams’ daughter.

Per Architectural Digest, which toured the space in 2021, Skylab, a Portland-based firm, designed the Serena Williams building in collaboration with Mark Parker, current executive chairman of Nike, Inc.

Intentional choices were integrated into the build to make it an environmentally-conscious project. The building features 648 solar panels, recycled content and resources to help preserve the federally protected wetland next to the structure.

“Architecture has long been a creative catalyst for Nike,” Nike chief design officer John Hoke said. “A manifestation of form and function following footprint, this building embodies Serena’s legacy as a force for positive change.”

Serena Williams has joined a bid to purchase English soccer club Chelsea, according to Sky News.

The 23-time Grand Slam champion has reportedly committed approximately $13 million to the bid, which is spearheaded by Martin Broughton. Formula One star Lewis Hamilton is also joining the group.

A source close to the group said the addition of the two sports stars was due to their “experience at building global sports brands,” Sky News reported. Williams founded a venture capital firm, Serena Ventures, in 2014. The fund announced an investment this week in OpenSponsorship, a British-based sports marketing platform that helps athletes and companies collaborate.

Williams is also a minority owner of the Miami Dolphins of the NFL and Angel City FC of the NWSL.

Last year, Williams was the second highest-paid female athlete in the world, making $35.5 million, behind Naomi Osaka who took home $55.2 million in earnings off the court. Both ranked among the top 50 highest-paid athletes in the world in 2021.

Three groups remain in the running for the purchase of Chelsea. One group includes Los Angeles Dodgers part-owner Todd Boehly, who previously had attempted to purchase a controlling interest the NWSL’s Washington Spirit.

When Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich initially put the club up for sale at the beginning of March, he said that all net proceeds would go toward assisting “all victims of the war in Ukraine.”

Serena Williams teased a return to Wimbledon on Thursday morning following the announcement that her longtime coach Patrick Mouratoglou will now work full-time with Simona Halep.

“I had a conversation with Serena, and the door opened for me, at least short term, to work with someone else,” Mouratoglou said in a statement.

Williams has not played in a tournament since Wimbledon in 2021, when she had to withdraw due to injury. That, combined with her coach’s move, sparked retirement speculation. But on her Instagram Story on Thursday, Williams teased her return.

The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion is in Miami for a Bitcoin conference. She posted a video of herself hanging out with Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rogers.

“We’ve been talking about my comeback,” she says in the video. “He’s been hyping me up and getting me ready for Wimbledon.”

Showing surprise at the mention of Wimbledon, Rogers mentions her playing in the U.S. Open. Williams replies: “Wimbledon is before the U.S. Open. I’ve got to play Wimbledon first!”

Williams also has mentioned a potential comeback on Twitter. In January, a fan asked her to come back, and Williams replied, “Coming!!!”

But while the retirement rumors seemingly have been dispelled for now, that doesn’t mean that the moment isn’t coming.

In a recent article on Elle, written by Williams herself , she noted that since giving birth to daughter Olympia in 2017 her priorities have shifted.

“The stakes of the game have shifted for me,” she writes. “I have 23 Grand Slams to my name, more than any other active player. But winning is now a desire and no longer a need. I have a beautiful daughter at home; I still want the titles, the success, and the esteem, but it’s not my reason for waking up in the morning. There is more to teach her about this game than winning.”

Simona Halep has a new coach: Patrick Mouratoglou, the longtime coach of Serena Williams.

Halep has had a strong start to the 2022 season but has been dealing with a muscle tear in her left thigh, which caused her to pull out of the Miami Open. She reached the semifinals at Indian Wells and is ranked 20th in the world.

Last September, the 2018 French Open champion announced her split from coach Darren Cahill, who suggested that she visit the Mouratoglou Academy.

Halep practiced with Mouratoglou ahead of Indian Wells and asked him to become her coach, but “it was out of the question at the time,” Mouratoglou wrote in a social media post.

“A few weeks later, I had a conversation with Serena, and the door opened for me, at least short term, to work with someone else,” Mouratoglou continued.

In an interview with Tennis Majors, the coach said his connection with Halep came “super fast.”

“Sometimes you feel a connection straight away,” he said. “In Simona’s case, it was instantly, really. As I said, she’s super smart and she’s super sensitive also, and she was very open with me. So that was easy, in a way. She made my job easy in being open and giving me the feeling that she’s willing to work and fully commit to what we’re going to do.”

The move sparked speculation about Williams’ future in the sport, which she addressed in her Instagram Story on Thursday. The 23-time Grand Slam champion posted a video with Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

“We’ve been talking about my comeback, he’s been hyping me up and getting me ready for Wimbledon,” Williams said.

Mouratoglou and Williams have worked together for 10 years, but Williams has not played since going down with an injury at Wimbledon in 2021.

On Nov. 29, 2014, five days after a Missouri grand jury decided not to indict the police officer who killed Micheal Brown, Ariyana Smith became the first athlete to bring the #BlackLivesMatter movement into the sports landscape.

While Muhammad Ali, Colin Kaepernick and LeBron James are commonly thought of as the torchbearers of sports activism, Just Women’s Sports knows Black women have always been at the forefront of driving change. In the first piece of our Black History Month series, we shared the stories of Rose Robinson and Wyomia Tyus, athletes who fought against injustice in the 1950s and ‘60s. Since then, a myriad of Black sportswomen have taken action, some recognized and some not.

Smith, a basketball player at Knox College, suited up to play against Fontbonne University in Clayton, Miss., mere minutes from Ferguson. When the national anthem began to play, Smith raised her hands in the now iconic “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” gesture before laying on the ground. Officials tried to move Smith in an attempt to start the game, but she continued her demonstration for four and a half minutes, symbolic of the four and a half hours Mike Brown’s body lay in the street after he was killed.

While the #BlackLivesMatter movement has spurred a frenzy of demonstrations in sports, Black women have been championing a variety of topics before the age of kneeling began. In the past twenty years, issues of racism, sexism and equality have been thrust into the public discourse due to the actions of Black women in sports, committed to creating a more just world for those who come after them.

Toni Smith

More than a decade before Ariyana Smith took a stand, a different Smith protested the national anthem. In 2003, Toni Smith, a senior basketball player at Division III Manhattanville College, turned her back to the flag in protest against inequality and the country’s involvement in Iraq.

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(Wayne Taylor/Getty Images)

Venus Williams

In 2006, Venus Williams penned an open letter in The Times in a push for equal pay. A year earlier, she had addressed the Grand Slam Board, advocating for an equal distribution of prize money at the French Open and Wimbledon. Williams’ voice brought attention to the pay discrepancies in the sport of tennis and led to the leveling of pay at Wimbledon. When she won her fourth Wimbledon trophy in 2007, Williams became the first woman to receive the same earnings as that of the men’s champion.

Seimone Augustus

Seimone Augustus, a four-time WNBA champion and one of the most decorated players in women’s basketball, advocated for gay marriage in 2012. The 2011 WNBA Finals MVP wanted to marry her wife in the state where she had won a championship the year prior. The Minnesota Lynx star spoke out against a ballot measure that would have made same-sex marriage illegal in the Minnesota state constitution.

Brittney Griner and Layshia Clarendon

In 2017, Brittney Griner and Layshia Clarendon co-wrote an op-ed in which they voiced their opposition to a Texas bill that would have barred transgender people from using restrooms and other public facilities of their choosing. The WNBA stars saw the bill as a danger to queer athletes who may have been forced to use a locker room that differed from their gender identity.

Maya Moore

Maya Moore, one of the most accomplished women’s basketball players in the history of the sport, stepped away from the game at the peak of her success to pursue criminal justice reform. Moore dedicated herself to freeing her now-husband Jonathan Irons, who had been falsely imprisoned for burglary and assault. With the help of Moore, a judge overturned Irons’ conviction after he spent 23 years of his life in prison.

Serena Williams

Serena Williams has been outspoken about gender and racial equality for most of her illustrious tennis career. She wrote an open letter in 2016 addressing equal pay, and another in 2017, on Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, focusing on pay inequities unique to Black women. In 2018, Serena and Venus Williams joined the Billie Jean King Initiative to push for equal pay for women in all industries.

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(Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

Allyson Felix

Allyson Felix brought attention to Nike’s refusal to guarantee salary protections for pregnant athletes in a 2019 New York Times op-ed. Felix, the most decorated U.S. track athlete, said that Nike attempted to pay her 70 percent less after she became a mother. Shortly after Felix’s public appeal, the company expanded its pregnancy benefits for women athletes.

Allyson Felix and Serena Williams are also champions for Black maternal health. Both women experienced life-threatening complications during childbirth, common to Black women. Felix underwent an emergency C-section to save herself and her daughter after doctors discovered she had severe preeclampsia. Williams developed a pulmonary embolism and a hematoma shortly after she gave birth, resulting in a series of surgeries and weeks of recovery before regaining her health.

Williams’ story brought national attention to the Black maternal health crisis, and she invested $3 million in a Black-owned startup aimed at improving prenatal and postpartum care for new mothers. Felix testified before Congress to petition the government to address systemic biases that lead to disparities in maternal mortality.

Gwen Berry

Gwen Berry raised her fist during the national anthem after winning the hammer throw at the 2019 Pan American games. Berry, a thrower for the U.S. women’s track and field team, was protesting racial inequality and police brutality, and was subsequently put on a 12-month probation by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. As a result, Berry lost several sponsorship deals, totaling nearly $50,000. After the Olympic Committee reversed their stance on protests in 2020, Berry demonstrated again at the 2021 Olympic Trials, this time by turning away from the flag.

Naomi Osaka

Days after Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man, was shot by police in Kenosha, Wisc., Naomi Osaka refused to play the semifinals of the Western and Southern Open, forcing the tournament’s postponement. Less than a week later, she arrived at the 2020 U.S. Open with seven masks in her duffle bag, each embroidered with the name of a Black victim of police violence: Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, Philando Castile and Tamir Rice. Osaka wore a different mask during each round of the tournament, winning her second U.S. Open title while drawing international attention to police brutality.

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(Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

Raven Saunders

At the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, while standing on the podium, Raven Saunders raised her arms and crossed them into an “X.” The American made the Game’s first podium demonstration after winning silver in the shot put. As a gay, Black woman with a history of mental health struggles, Saunders’ crossed arms symbolized the intersection of her oppressed identities.

Simone Biles

On the eve of further cementing herself as the greatest gymnast of all time, Simone Biles withdrew from the team final and women’s individual all-around final at the Tokyo Games. She cited mental exhaustion and physical health concerns after experiencing the “twisties,” a state of dissociation that inhibits a gymnast from completing a skill.

As arguably the face of the Tokyo Olympics, dealing with the pressure of breaking world records, Biles felt the weight of the world on her shoulders. In a sport that has long demanded obedience from its young athletes, the simple act of saying “no” sparked a moment of reckoning in sports. Biles, who announced in 2018 that she was sexually abused by Larry Nassar, a longtime doctor for USA Gymnastics, spurred conversations about mental health, abuse and exploitation with her decision. Biles, like so many other Black women athletes, continues to leverage her platform to drive societal change.

Mariah Lee is a professional athlete and freelance writer who specializes in the intersection of race and sports. She holds a B.A. from Stanford University and a M.S. from the Wake Forest School of Business. Follow her on Instagram @merdashewrote.

Serena Williams is the latest star athlete to join the NFT market, signing on with Sorare as an advisor.

The tennis icon will counsel the player-owned fantasy sports network on the platform’s foray into women’s sports and extension into Web3 initiatives.

“NFTs have the potential to be a powerful tool for bringing equity and investment to women’s sports,” said Williams in a press release, “I believe Sorare will be setting the culture and tone of the future of sports entertainment.”

Sorare has grown rapidly since launching in 2018, garnering over 1 million global users and recording $325 million in trading volume.

Williams further solidified her commitment to NFTs by purchasing a piece from the Bored Ape Yacht Club and posting the token to her social media account.

Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams continue to dominate off the court.

Despite having only nine on-court WTA match wins combined since February, the tennis stars are the two highest-paid female athletes, respectively. Osaka tops Sportico’s list with $55.2 million in earnings, while Williams comes in second at $35.5 million.

According to Sportico’s estimates, 90 percent of their totals were earned off the court from endorsements.

Simone Biles ranks as the third highest-paid female athlete at $6 million, a significant drop-off from Osaka and Williams. However, according to SportsPro, Biles is the most marketable athlete in the world and Osaka is second.

Jin Young Ko and Sei Young Kim, both golfers on the LPGA tour, rank fourth and fifth on Sportico’s list.

Last year, 90 percent of the highest-paid female athletes were tennis players. But due to a drop-off in revenue and canceled tennis events during the COVID-19 pandemic, only 30 percent of the athletes on the current list are tennis players.

Soccer stars Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe made their way onto the ranking, while Mikaela Shiffrin represents as the sole winter sport athlete.

Serena Williams defeated Irina-Camelia Begu 7-6 (6), 6-2 Monday night to advance to the second round of the French Open. Williams’ match was the tournament’s first-ever scheduled night play.

Begu proved to be a formidable opponent for Williams, as the American superstar had to fend off two set points from the Romanian in the first set. With the win in sight, Williams started to cruise in the second set. Putting away 27 winners throughout the match, Williams was able to efficiently close out games and sail to a straight-set victory.

Williams will face Mihaela Buzarnescu in the second round at Roland Garros.

For die-hard Serena Williams fans, the desire to see her win her 24th Grand Slam is equally understandable and unrelenting. We want it so badly we can barely stand to watch, and some of us don’t watch out of fear that we’ve been jinxing her.

Despite having seen her win 23 before, we’re now totally enthralled with the prospect of just one more. It may seem unreasonable, but at this point, we’re past logic. No championship matters more than Serena getting 24.

If we were rational, we would be appeased by the fact that No. 24 is only a meaningless technicality. Serena is already the GOAT. And yet… she’s not the current record holder for individual Grand Slam titles. That claim belongs to Margaret Court and her 24.

Now, there is a stack of SCOTUS-worthy arguments as to why Court’s career is in no way comparable to our 21st century queen. For starters, the bulk of Court’s career occurred before the Open Era (when the Grand Slams were only open to amateurs), and almost half of her titles were earned at the Australian Open during the 60s and early 70s, when the tournament wasn’t nearly as prestigious and didn’t draw many of the world’s top players.

Nearly all tennis analysts, historians, and commentators agree that it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. And while no one is trying to diminish the still-very-impressive career of Margaret Court, her personal beliefs have increasingly tainted her historical record. A born-again Christian Minister, Court has been very vocal about her anti-LGBTQ views. If Serena caught her (asterisk-marked) record, there would be an extra layer of icing on that cake for progressive-minded fans.

One of the main reasons the quest for No. 24 has become an obsession for many isn’t that it would be number 24, but that it would actually be No. 1—Serena’s first Grand Slam title since becoming a mom.

After winning the 2017 Australian Open while eight weeks pregnant, Serena gave birth to her now three-year-old daughter, Olympia, in September of that year. Her emergency cesarean, followed by a near-fatal pulmonary embolism, forced her into a long, slow recovery, one whose difficulties Serena has openly discussed.

Any athlete or sports fan who is also a parent knows that Serena’s quest to return to the highest pinnacle of her sport is a whole new endeavor, one that is a thousand times more challenging than anything she’s attempted before. And the insanely impressive thing is how close she has repeatedly come to reaching it.

Ten months (ten months!) after the harrowing birth of her daughter, Serena fought her way to the finals of Wimbledon in 2018 only to lose to Angelique Kerber. A few months later, she reached the finals of the US Open, losing that time to the then up-and-coming Naomi Osaka.

In 2019, she reached the finals of both Wimbledon and the US Open once again but didn’t come away with either title. In 2020, the cursed year that it was, Serena didn’t reach a Grand Slam finals match for the first time since 2006. (Granted, Wimbledon wasn’t held so the chances were fewer.) In the last two Grand Slam events Serena has lost in the semi-finals. The latest defeat came a couple weeks ago at the Australian Open, once again at the hands of the now established and dominant Osaka.

It’s easy to look at Serena’s finishes since 2017 and see a picture of a champion who came so incredibly close to that No. 24, but who’s chances get slimmer with each passing month as she approaches her 40th birthday (gasp). But what we’re really looking at is evidence of a mind-boggling accomplishment. Reaching four Grand Slam finals in the first two years after Olympia was born at the ages of 37 and 38 may be a more impressive achievement than any single title of her career.

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Logically and rationally, we know she doesn’t need No. 24. Serena is already the GOAT, full stop.

Unfortunately, we are not fully logical and rational beings. (We’re sports fans, after all.) And so we still want to see her reach that pinnacle again. And at this point, we don’t even care how she gets it. We don’t care if the field is stacked in her favor, if her opponent drops out mid-match due to injury, if a stomach bug ravages the entire tournament and she is the only one left standing. She doesn’t need to earn it, because in our mind, she already has.

Now we just want the hardware to prove it. We want it wrapped up in a velvet box and tied with a silky ribbon. Throw in a token of appreciation handed to her on a silver platter, with a note that reads, “Here you go Serena. You deserve to have this. Thank you for all you are and all you have done.” Throw in a second velvet box with No. 25 in it, and maybe, just maybe, her devoted supporters will finally have some peace of mind.