According to a new Forbes study, UFC superstar Ronda Rousey was the 8th highest paid female athlete in the world in the past year (June 2014 – June 2015).
Forbes claims that Rousey banked $6.5 million during that period, which included two UFC victories over Alexis Davis at UFC 175 (545,000 PPV buys) and Cat Zingano at UFC 184 (590,000 PPV buys), appearances in three major movies: ‘The Expendables 3’, ‘Furious 7’ and ‘Entourage’, an autobiography, plus endorsement deals with the likes of Reebok, Metro PCS, Monster headphones, Buffalo David Bitton and Carl’s Jr.
No less than 8 tennis players feature on the the overall top 10 which is topped by Maria Sharapova ($29.7 million) followed by Serena Williams ($24.6 million) and Caroline Wozniacki ($14.6 million).
As well as Rousey has done in the past year, it’s likely that she’ll easily eclipse it in the year to come as this report ended in June, just before ‘Rowdy’s’ popularity surged to new height with a 34 second KO win over Bethe Correia at UFC 190 which is believed to have done in the region of 1 million pay-per-view buys – by far her biggest number to date as a headliner.
Her ‘MyFight/YourFight’ book bounced back into the New York bestsellers list at No.17 last week, while the film rights have been snapped up by Paramount Pictures with Rousey set to play herself and she’s also scheduled to appear alongside Mark Wahlberg in the Peter Berg directed, ‘Mile 22’.
It’s clear at that stage that not only Rousey now the UFC’s biggest star (as acknowledged by the promotion itself), but beyond that she has also become a genuine global phenomenon and as such the sky’s the limit for her earning potential in the future.
