How Many Jobs Does a Woman Athlete Have to Be Good At?

When did one job stop being enough

A’ja Wilson won her fifth WNBA MVP in 2026. Five. She also led the league in scoring average again. By basically every available definition, she is extraordinarily good at her actual job.

This year, she also launched the second generation of her Nike signature shoe and an expanded apparel collection. There is product design, storytelling, fashion and a whole visual identity around what it means to be A’ja Wilson.

Which is awesome. But it got me thinking about something that feels increasingly normal in women’s sports: we don’t really ask women athletes to have one job anymore.

We ask them to compete, build an audience, promote sponsors, make content, understand branding and have a retirement plan. For plenty of athletes, somewhere on that list is also an actual second job so they can afford to keep doing the first one.

How many jobs does a woman athlete have to be good at before we decide she’s valuable?

The impressive résumé can hide the question

Gabby Thomas studied neurobiology at Harvard and earned a master’s in public health. Naomi Girma was preparing for the Paris Olympics while finishing graduate coursework at Stanford. In July 2024, Stanford reported she was two classes away from her master’s.

Two classes. Such a normal problem inside an absolutely abnormal life.

I love learning these things about athletes. They give people more ways to connect beyond a starting block or a soccer field. But I wonder if we celebrate women being good at six things so often that we forget to ask why they had to become good at six things in the first place.

This is not a claim that professional women athletes are more educated than professional men athletes. There isn’t a clean, current comparison across all sports that supports saying that. The question is why so many women athletes seem to have entire second and third identities operating alongside their sport, and how much work those identities require.

Sometimes the second job pays for the first

Parity’s Beyond the Game report surveyed 500 professional women athletes across 55 sports. Among respondents, 78% earned $50,000 or less from their sport.

So when we call the modern woman athlete a person with multiple careers, sometimes we mean athlete, founder and creator. Sometimes we mean athlete, server or marketing manager with a Zoom call at nine.

As someone who is a professional athlete and also has a full-time job, I know this version pretty well. You train, recover, answer your email, make a sponsor deliverable, book a flight, figure out whether you can afford the next tournament and then open LinkedIn.

I know. Super glamorous.

The problem gets more complicated when the extra work is supposed to create commercial opportunities. An SFS and The Breakaway analysis of the Women’s Sports Alliance’s 2025 Elite Female Athlete Survey described a sample composed primarily of UK-based athletes. Every respondent had worked with a brand in the previous two years, but 56.5% had never received financial compensation from a brand. That sample does not represent every woman athlete, but the gap deserves attention.

Think about the job description: find the sponsor, pitch yourself, negotiate the deal, understand the contract, make the content and report back. All of that can still end in free product.

At some point, “build your personal brand” starts sounding like another unpaid position on the team.

Storytelling helps grow the sport

Ilona Maher makes rugby accessible to people who might not know a single rule. Her personality gives them a reason to care before they know when the team plays. Her Bristol Bears debut drew 9,240 people to Ashton Gate, a record for a standalone Premiership Women’s Rugby fixture at the time.

An athlete can become the doorway into a sport. Someone likes the person, notices her next game and starts watching. That connection is valuable. It also takes work.

Sarah Nurse explained the relationship especially clearly. She told Digiday that she reinvests money from social media and partnerships into her hockey, paying for trainers, power-skating coaches, nutritionists and mobility coaches.

The creator job helps pay for the resources that make her better at the athlete job. Being better at the athlete job can create more visibility, which can lead to more creator work. Around and around we go.

Content can give an athlete income, independence and a career that lasts beyond competition. It can also become one more thing she needs to excel at to afford being excellent at her sport.

Pay for the work you value

Brands are getting more than a person holding a product. An athlete might help design it, shape the campaign, introduce it to her community and explain what athletes actually need.

A’ja’s Nike collection makes that visible. Her preferences and style are part of the product itself. She is helping shape the story, and that contribution is part of the partnership’s value.

If an athlete is expected to compete, create content, grow the fan base, sell the product and give the partnership credibility, we should make sure she is being paid for that work.

An athlete’s income tells you something about the economics of her sport. It does not tell you everything about her value to an audience. In Parity’s survey, 88% said a $20,000 sponsorship would be very meaningful or life-changing.

For an athlete, that money could mean fewer work shifts, a coach, travel, recovery or childcare. It could mean more sleep and more time doing the thing we theoretically value her for: being an elite athlete.

We see the audience she built and the community she created. We can also ask where that value goes, and whether the athlete creating it gets a fair share.

Everything else should be a choice

I love that women athletes are multidimensional. They can care about fashion, science, investing, beauty, gaming, public health or absolutely nothing they want to share with us. That last one matters too.

Not every athlete wants to become an influencer. Some are natural creators. Others might be great business partners behind the scenes. Some want to train, compete and put their phones down. All of those should be allowed.

Being interesting outside sport should create more opportunities. It shouldn’t become another qualification an athlete has to meet before someone decides she deserves one.

For brands, the assignment is to get curious. Ask what she knows, who listens and what she wants to build. If you want more than a person holding a product, build a partnership that values the work you’re asking for.

For leagues, invest in helping athletes tell the stories that grow your fan base. Don’t just hand everyone a content quota. For fans, the next thing you learn about an athlete outside her sport might be what makes you care more about what she does inside it.

So how many jobs does a woman athlete have to be good at?

Ideally, one. The athlete part. Everything else should be an opportunity, not an entrance requirement.

Explore Athlete, Actually for more conversations about the athletes, fans, culture and business shaping women’s sports.