Founded in 2016, OnlyFans was created with the intention of connecting musicians and influencers to their respective fan bases. Explicit content and pornography were even banned from being shared on the platform. After a year of underwhelming interest from those demographics, however, the ban was lifted, and with it came the site currently valued at roughly $8 billion. An 18+ social media platform, creators retain 80 percent of what they earn from subscription fees, tips, paid messages, and pay-per-view media. Through this setup, these same creators have received more than $25 billion in profit since the site’s creation. The banning of pornographic content was later revisited in 2021, but to no avail. Nonetheless, OnlyFans has continued to try to distance itself from its not-safe-for-work reputation through the launch of OFTV later that year, and now through sports.

“Professional athletes from around the world are increasingly choosing to join OnlyFans to monetize their content, grow their online presence, and meaningfully engage with their fan communities,” an OnlyFans spokesperson wrote to OPEN Tennis. “We are especially passionate about creating opportunities for athletes in sports where earning opportunities can be more limited outside of the very top tier of competition. Tennis is a global sport with highly engaged fan communities, and many players are looking for new ways to connect with supporters and build their personal brands beyond traditional sponsorship models.”

Kyrgios, who was the first active tennis player to join the site, in 2023, is now joined by the likes of Alexandre Muller, Pedro Martinez, Panna Udvardy, Arina Rodionova, Oceane Dodin, and Chloe Paquet. While some may have signed up for OnlyFans on their own will, others, such as Muller, signed annual sponsorship contracts that include requirements for wearing the OF merchandise and even sporting the logo on court. The latter has been difficult due to an outright ban of the OnlyFans logo at sanctioned events.

 What differs for each athlete is what they choose to post, whether they are an OnlyFans Athlete or not. More than 285 professional athletes “share exclusive content including training sessions, coaching tips, gym workouts, nutrition, travel, and behind-the-scenes access,” according to the spokesperson. For the male tennis players such as Kyrgios, Muller, and Martinez, their content doesn’t stray far from this statement, with exception to a cheeky bio on Muller’s account reading “Don’t think too much…. Just follow and you will see 😈.” 

Muller politely declined to comment on his sponsorship with OnlyFans. 

For the women, however, their pages play much more into the sexual nature of OnlyFans. Udvardy and Paquet will advertise bikini photos as pay-per-view content along with their tennis content and selfies. Both women do not acknowledge the sexual content, mildly at that, in which they post.  “You can not compare what Sachia Vickery is doing on the app with me 🙃 I think I am doing like Panna.” Paquet wrote. “I sponsored by OF to try to change their image. I share my life on tour, my travels, my practices and talk with the fans! No nude, no hot videos! The same thing that I can possible share on my insta! The only thing is there I can speak with fans in exchange of money (3$ by message) compare to insta that I do not answer!” For Vickery and Dodin, they both focus primarily on sexual and erotic content, with subscribers recently receiving this message for a paywalled post after Dodin’s Roland-Garros qualifying win on May 18: “To celebrate a victory at French Open, a super hot video… striptease 🥵 Face, boobs, ass—everything’s there for your greatest pleasure. Let’s enjoy this victory together 😈.”

 None of the aforementioned athletes have produced X-rated content, but the difference in content between male and female tennis players reveals more about the site than it does the athletes on it. Paquet claims she is sponsored to “change their image,” yet she plays into the sexual nature of the site instead of solely posting tennis content. So while the men have not felt the need to market themselves in this manner, the women choose to. Along with the OnlyFans spokesperson acknowledging that these are athletes in a sport where “earning opportunities can be more limited,” this begs the question of whether the reputation of OnlyFans is something that can be fixed by the creators themselves, or if the inclusion of female athletes in need of secondary income streams will only result in them adhering to the sexual precedent set by the most successful women on the platform—and ultimately sanctioned by OnlyFans. “Those other players only posting tennis content, they’ll probably do okay, but I think at some point they’re going to plateau,” Vickery said. “They’re going to realize, ‘I’m not really making as much as I can.’ And that might have them thinking, ‘Well, what if I showed a little more?’”

The temptations of “pushing the limit” for female athletes on OnlyFans are real. Doing so is also a lucrative opportunity to capitalize on the constant focus on women’s sex appeal in the sport rather than their playing ability. With financial compensation in professional tennis on both sides being extremely inadequate for players, women face a pay disparity in the prize pool as grave as $3 million. So even when they look to brands for another source of income to relieve certain stresses, the sexualization and critiques of their appearance come from such brands as well. Former world No. 21 Sorana Cirstea revealed that she was once told by adidas that “it’s better to look good and be in the top 20 than to not look that good and be No. 1.” Vickery even claims she was dropped by Lacoste because her “body didn’t fit the mold,” citing the lack of curvy Black women with major clothing brand sponsorships. By joining OnlyFans, these women are able to have more control regarding how they monetize their appearance. But it also highlights the risks women who have spent more than a decade on tour are willing to take because their appearance is often compensated more generously than their performance as tennis players.

“If players were happy with all the money that they were making, I don’t think they would be exploring OnlyFans. So maybe that’s something internal with the system they need to work out,” Vickery said. “I played a tournament last week, and I made $300. This is a 100K event, one of the strongest, toughest tournaments on the calendar…. I couldn’t even imagine if I didn’t have that [OnlyFans] backing. It’s really not good. They were calling me crazy at first for joining the platform, but mark my words: A lot more people are going to join. They’re gonna put two and two together and realize that $300 a week isn’t gonna cut it after years and years on the tour.” And with more than six top 100 players reaching out to Vickery after she joined the site, the appeal is undeniable. Now tennis’ governing bodies must decide whether simply hiding the brand’s logo is sufficient, or if they are willing to invest real money to show that they value these women more as tennis players than the public values them for their sex appeal?