Just a game? Not to these young all-stars, who are fearlessly leading sports into the future.
By Brett Knight, Justin Birnbaum and Angelica Deleon
Asked the worst advice she has ever received, 28-year-old Olympic rugby sensation Ilona Maher says, “Tone it down.” For ScorePlay’s 28-year-old CEO, Victorien Tixier, it’s “be realistic,” and for Erica Kontos, a 28-year-old member of the NBA’s international media team, it’s “just conform to fit in.” Carlin Hudson, a 28-year-old former pro soccer player, might have received the lamest wisdom of all, though: “Good things come to those who wait.”
For all four, going against the grain has paid off. Maher loudly and proudly led the U.S. to a bronze medal in Paris this summer, pushing her TikTok follower count past 3 million and securing a spot on ABC’s Dancing With the Stars. Tixier—with his cofounder, Xavier Green, 29—has built a platform that is helping 170 sports organizations manage and distribute media content, and Kontos is bringing the NBA to new countries, and in new languages. As for Hudson, she now plays a key strategic role for the National Women’s Soccer League.
All of those rising stars are among the gifted athletes, inventive founders and accomplished business professionals who landed on the 2025 Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Sports category, a group that also includes such sports luminaries as Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum, 26; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey, 28; and Indiana Fever phenom Caitlin Clark, 22.
Candidates—who had to be 29 or younger as of December 31, 2024, and could not have been previously named to a Forbes 30 Under 30 continental list—were reviewed by a panel of judges featuring some of the sports world’s biggest players: Keia Clarke, the CEO of the WNBA’s New York Liberty; Jahm Najafi, cofounder of private equity firm MSP Sports Capital; Vijay Srinivasan, cofounder of Major League Cricket; and Lindsey Vonn, the entrepreneur and legendary skier, who herself was a member of the 30 Under 30 class of 2014.
One of the new honorees is 25-year-old Mondo Duplantis, a Louisiana-born pole vaulter who competes internationally for his mother’s native Sweden and has broken the world record 10 times in his career. But he isn’t the only one raising the bar.
Mallory Swanson, 26, who scored the gold-medal-winning goal for the U.S. women’s national soccer team at the Paris Olympics, owns the NWSL’s largest contract, reportedly worth more than $2 million across five years. Erin Matson, 24, who won four national championships as a field hockey player at the University of North Carolina, transitioned to coaching at age 22 and won another title in her first season leading the program. Haley and Hanna Cavinder, 23-year-old twin guards for the University of Miami women’s basketball team, have become faces of the NCAA’s NIL era, racking up endorsement deals with their social media following of more than 6 million and launching brands of their own.
Meanwhile, Kelsie Whitmore, 26, is the first female baseball player to have appeared in Atlantic League and Pioneer League games, and Laila Edwards, 20, is the first Black woman to have suited up for the U.S. senior national ice hockey team.
Inclusion was a broader theme of this year’s list. Saroya Tinker, 26, who was the first Black hockey player at Yale, now leads diversity initiatives for the PWHL and runs the nonprofit advocacy group Black Girl Hockey Club Canada. HoopQueens founder Nakissa Koomalsingh, 29, is the organizer of Canada’s first pro women’s basketball league, and Inner Circle Sports vice president Maddie Winslow, 29, is aiming to demonstrate the financial viability of women’s sports through her investment banking advisory services.
In all, the 30 Under 30 Sports class of 2025 features 22 women and 16 people of color.
Like her fellow honorees, Matson, the field hockey coach, shared the worst advice she has received: “Defense wins championships.” (She prefers to stay on the attack and dictate the action.) Asked the advice she would give her 18-year-old self, however, Matson offers a more universal sentiment—one that could serve as a motto for the 30 Under 30 list.
“If you think a goal is ambitious, I dare you to think bigger,” she says. “Don’t for a second let outside voices and opinions knock you off your path. You will never be criticized by someone who is doing more than you; you will only be criticized by those who are doing less.
“Stay the course, and continue unapologetically chasing your dreams. Trust me, you’d be shocked to see where you get and how many people you bring along with you.”
For the complete 2025 30 Under 30 Sports list, click here, and for full 30 Under 30 coverage, click here.
This story was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.