How sports-tech power couple Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian make and spend their millions

Her wealth, in large part, comes from earning more than $94 million in career prize money — considerably more than any other professional women’s tennis player. 

She’s partnered with Nike, Beats by Dre, Gatorade, Subway, Gucci, JPMorgan Chase, Tempur-Pedic, Ford, Aston Martin, Audemars Piguet, Intel, and Wilson.

“I wanted to showcase a lot of fringe,” she said, explaining the inspiration for her designs to Women’s Wear Daily in 2015.

That year, she and the company conducted a survey looking at Americans’ perceptions of the gender pay gap. On average, women continue to earn less than men, according to Pew Research.

Nike’s headquarters, located in Beaverton, Oregon, includes a 1-million-square-foot building with 140 tennis courts, which Nike named the Serena Williams Building. Williams became a Nike athlete in 2003.

The movie dramatized the sisters’ childhood, when their father served as their coach and helped them rise to tennis stardom. Williams hoped sequels would follow, focusing on the ways Serena’s and Venus’ stories diverged, she told Business Insider in 2022.

The two married in 2017, less than two years after they met and a month after the birth of their first child. 

Williams told Vanity Fair she knew he was going to propose when he asked her to fly to Italy. “I was like, ‘Serena, you’re 35, you’re ready. This is what you want,’ ” she remembered thinking.

A year later, he sold the site to Condé Nast for $10 million. He was 23 years old.

Reddit is now worth billions. Ohanian later said the money was enticing because his mother was sick with terminal cancer at the time. 

“The deal was months in the making, and I wish I’d had more advisors around the table giving me more perspective on the sale,” he wrote on Twitter, now X, in 2020.

After leaving Reddit in 2009, he had stints at various companies like the travel search site Hipmunk, the startup accelerator Y Combinator, and the social enterprise Breadpig.

His resignation was in response to the site’s long reputation as a platform for racist and misogynistic content, as well as for misinformation. He urged the company to fill his seat with a Black candidate instead.

Michael Seibel joined as the company’s first Black board member days later.

In 2020, Ohanian also left Initialized Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm he co-founded in 2011. 

A year later, he announced a new VC firm called “Seven Seven Six.” 

The firm has invested in women’s track and Colin Kaepernick‘s AI company. Previously, Ohanian pledged $1 million to Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp using his Reddit stock gains.

In 2019, Forbes estimated Ohanian’s net worth was $70 million and put Williams’ fortune at $260 million in 2022. 

Ohanian sat down next to Williams outside by the pool, Vanity Fair reported in 2017. After trying to get him to move to a new table, she and her friends invited him to join them.

Ohanian had never watched Williams play — and wasn’t much of a tennis fan — but he agreed to come to her match that night.

The pair walked around the Jardin des Plantes, and Ohanian bought Williams some candy. 

Two chaperones accompanied them on their first date, Williams’ agent and assistant, Ohanian recently said on TikTok. 

Ohanian then went to watch her play in the French Open later that week.

He got down on one knee at the same table where they had sat over a year before. 

To pay for the 17-carat diamond, Ohanian used part of the $50 million he got from crypto exchange Coinbase and other investments, he told Forbes in 2023.

Ohanian cheered on Williams, who won her 23rd Grand Slam and earned $2.7 million.

Following in her mother’s footsteps, Olympia is a burgeoning fashion icon.

Olympia became the youngest person to grace the cover of Vogue at three months old.

At the time, Olympia, who was two, was the youngest owner of a professional sports team.

Williams wore an estimated $3.5 million worth of jewelry at the ceremony. For the reception, she changed into a pair of sparkly Nikes covered in Swarovski crystals.

Williams and Markle have been friends since 2014. 

“She quickly became a confidante I would text when I was traveling, the friend I would rally around for her tennis matches, and the down to earth chick I was able to grab lunch with just a couple weeks ago in Toronto,” Markle wrote on her blog, The Tig, in 2014.

Williams and her sister, Venus, became partial owners of the Miami Dolphins in 2009.

“My dad had two nosebleeds for a number of years, and I upgraded his seats to four seats at the front row around the 50-yard line,” he told CNBC in 2018.

The family purchased the 6,000-square-foot home in 2017. It has a bar, pool, and spacious kitchen but no tennis court. 

They spend most of their time in Florida, where they own a stunning property in Palm Beach Gardens. The house includes an art gallery and trophy room.

They also have homes in Paris and Bel Air. One of her houses has an entire closet dedicated to her shoe collection.

When she was Aston Martin’s chief sporting officer, she was photographed with a $300,000 Vanquish. In 2018, she became a brand ambassador for Lincoln. 

Ohanian also buys comics and video games.

In 2011, the United Nations Children’s Fund appointed Williams as a goodwill ambassador. UNICEF noted her work in Ghana in 2006, handing out anti-malarial nets and promoting vaccinations. 

When Colin Kaepernick’s 2018 Nike ad sparked controversy, she tweeted that she was “especially proud” to work with the brand. She previously voiced her support for the NFL player’s activism as well. 

In his 2013 book, “Without Their Permission,” he imagined a dismal, not-too-distant future — in 2025 — where the notion of privacy had completely disappeared. 

He’s also donated money to organizations working to diversify tech companies’ talent pools. 

The tennis player posted pictures of herself and Ohanian on Instagram, writing: “Was so excited when Anna Wintour invited the 3 of us to the Met Gala.”

“Adira is a girl’s name of Hebrew origin and means ‘mighty,’ ‘strong,’ and ‘majestic.’ The elegant name is popular in many cultures around the world,” Williams wrote on Instagram on her daughter‘s first birthday. “Adira is the feminine form of the classic name Adir. It is a Biblical name, meaning ‘Strong One.’ “

Olympia accompanied her parents to the 2024 Olympics in Paris this summer and on an island-hopping vacation last winter.

Doctors feared the nodules on his thyroid might be cancerous, so they removed half of the gland. 

“The worst part tbh has been not being able to lift for 2 weeks but big fella will be back at it next week and I took my girls to Disney World this week so life is wonderful,” he wrote on Instagram.

He urged other men, especially fathers, to go to the doctor for regular checkups. Earlier this year, Ohanian was diagnosed with Lyme disease as well.

 In August 2022, she announced her intention to retire after the US Open. 

“If I were a guy, I wouldn’t be writing this because I’d be out there playing and winning while my wife was doing the physical labor of expanding our family,” she wrote in an essay for Vogue.

In 2021, she made $45.9 million. Most of that money came from endorsement deals and other ventures.

“I’ve actually never played for money — I just thought you would go out there and hold a trophy,” Williams said on “Kneading Dough,” a personal-finance video series, in 2018.

She tried to deposit her first million-dollar check through a bank drive-thru before the teller told her she needed to come inside for such a large transaction.

Along with Alison Stillman, Williams launched Serena Ventures in 2014. The firm’s goal is to fund women and other founders who are underrepresented. 

“I’ve invested in over 85 companies, and I also have about 14 unicorns,” Serena said in an April TikTok video. Unicorns are privately owned companies valued at over $1 billion. 

Some of her investments include MasterClass, Tonal, Impossible Foods, and Noom, Vogue reported in 2022.

Williams told Forbes she had goals beyond just being an endorsement athlete, “I want to be in the infrastructure. I want to be the brand, instead of just being the face.”

One was a “Caddyshack” homage for Michelob ULTRA, and the other was a locker room pep talk for Rémy Martin.

She also recently started her own beauty line, Wyn Beauty, and signed a deal with Penguin Random House to write two books.

The first is a memoir about her life, and the second is an inspirational book highlighting what she’s learned as a philanthropist and an advocate for women and in her career as an investor with Serena Ventures. 

This story was originally published on May 2, 2023, and updated on December 17, 2024.