I’m a teenage pickleball star and I live with my parents. I make 20 times more than Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese combined.

Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese are two of the biggest names in women’s sports.

The college rivals entered the WNBA as the first and seventh picks in this year’s draft.

4

But despite huge viewing figures, Clark only earned $76,535 in salary for his rookie season and Reese received $73,439.

For comparison, Zacharie Risacher signed a four-year, $57 million contract after going first in the NBA draft.

Clark and Reese might also cast envious glances at the world of pickleball, where Anna Leigh Waters earns more than her male peers.

The 17-year-old’s agent told Forbes that his client stands to earn a staggering sum in 2024.

“She will make over $3 million this year,” Kelly Wolf confirmed. “She has become the face of pickleball and the PPA Tour (Professional Pickleball Association) and MLP (Major League Pickleball) know it.”

Both Clark and Reese earn significantly more from endorsements than from their hard work on the field, with the former earning $11 million in 2024.

Waters has previous sponsorship deals with FILA, Paddletek, Lock Laces, Cetaphil, Biofreeze, Collectbobbles and Shiseido, among others.

Those connections bring her earnings to more than $10 million, according to the teenager, who turned professional at age 12 to become her sport’s youngest star.

“I’m young, I still live with my parents, but I make over seven figures a year,” Waters said.

“When I first started playing pickleball, you would go to a local tournament and play on these registered courts that were on tennis courts, or maybe even indoors on a basketball court and it was just a fun thing people did.

4

4

4

“And then when COVID hit, that’s when I noticed pickleball really grew and it was because a lot of families were going out to parks or even building courts in their driveways and it was something they could do together and have fun.

“And then after COVID hit, the tournaments got a lot bigger. We were playing in bigger facilities, and more national and global sponsors came into the sport.”

Waters, who turns 18 in January, is world No. 1 in singles, doubles and mixed doubles.

The sport’s top-ranked man, Ben Johns, told CNBC in May that his combined income from his salary and endorsements would not exceed $2.5 million this year.

“There’s no one else that has all of these contracts that she has right now,” Wolf added. “Anna Leigh is its own little cottage industry, to be quite honest.”

Leigh Waters – Anna Leigh’s mother and doubles partner – played Division I tennis at the University of South Carolina.

Her then 11-year-old daughter stepped in when Leigh’s doubles partner dropped out of a tournament in Dallas six years ago – the rest is history.

“So my mom asked me to sub for her and we played and got silver in the professional tournament, and my mom was like, ‘Okay, I guess you’re ready to play professionally with me,’” said Anna Leigh. “That’s kind of how my professional journey started.

“I’ve been homeschooled since third grade, so I’m kind of used to sports and school.

“But I also like to do things outside of pickleball, like I like to cook, cook, hang out with my friends.

“But I think because I’m used to it, it’s just a normal thing for me and everything else would be different.”