“When I started the sport, men were making all the money,” Olympics legend Gail Devers highlighted this dark reality in 2024. While she thanked Alexis Ohanian for a much-needed track and field revamp with Athlos NYC, a stark disparity came to light. Yes, not every sport has a messiah like him, working to provide such revolutionary opportunities for women athletes. No wonder, the painful reality of women’s sports continues to tag along like a dark cast. This time, this crack has become visible in multiple sports, pushing Simone Biles & Co. to a bottom of sorts. And that earned a feisty response from a national reporter!

Notably, Simone Biles became placed as the #10th highest-paid female athlete of 2024 by Forbes, with $11.2 million in her pocket. Thanks to her 3 golds and one silver in Paris, Biles entered her name in the history books as America’s most decorated gymnast. She also made a cinematic appearance with her docuseries on Netflix. In addition, she toured the whole of America with her gym team. But cashing in millions and earning national honor could not prevent her from being hit but this blow!

On February 12, 2025, Sportico revealed its list of the 100 highest-paid athletes. And now, not a single woman made it to the list for the second year, in a row. Not just Biles, positioned at number 1, tennis player Coco Gauff missed the list by $7.1 million. Even ranked Number # 3, Freeskier Eileen Gu earned about $22.1 million. Yet, that wasn’t good enough. This painful reality check seemed to have nudged many. In fact, as reported by the Female Athlete Project, National Reporter, Roz Kelly from Nine News clapped back with a strong comment.

Roz Kelly said, “It’s just proof of the gender pay gap in sports… when it comes to endorsement deals, they are severely underpaid compared to their male counterparts.” Well, Kelly does have a point. According to Forbes, the women’s combined total earnings from 2024, were less than 12% of the top 20 male athletes earned in the year.

For once, we can say that this pattern is limited to elite sports. Because at the NCAA level, we have Olivia Dunne representing women and gymnastics, particularly in the list of the top 100 NIL earners. So, that’s certainly different. She even earned over $9.5 million from her endorsement deals, which is way more than many male athletes. Certainly, a crowd-puller one could say.

But when it comes to elite sports, this is not the case. Although Simone Biles flaunts an estimated net worth of $25M, her numbers seem pale, compared to the men’s list. This, in itself, is quite a setback for one of the top-ranked Olympic gymnasts. Unfortunately, gymnastics doesn’t have a trailblazer like Alexis Ohanian, who promises to take track and field to greater heights in 2025.

Unlike Simone Biles & Co., track and field to cash in more in 2025?

Well, at least that’s the plan, as per Alexis Ohanian. Likewise, Zoe Hobbs, a 27-year-old track and field athlete, named Zendaya as her ideal choice to play her in a documentary during a February 2025 interview. She even fancied that a series like this would be pretty cool to be aired on Netflix. And guess who got the memo? Alexis Ohanian!

The Reddit co-founder instantly took to Instagram and chimed in, saying, “First step is getting Zendaya to ATHLOS 2025…@zoe_hobbs I gotchu.”

Clearly, Ohanian is ready to go to great lengths for the sport and his female athletes. He even plans to elevate the 2025 version of Athlos to a never-seen-before stature. No wonder he had even assured Massi Russel previously, “Don’t worry @masai_russell that’s just the beginning- y’all proved that ATHLOS needs to be even bigger in 2025 [emoji].”

Ohanian is taking female sports seriously and works tirelessly to transform it. If only Simone Biles and Co. could have someone to take up a similar role!