Recently, a controversy involved in the disparity in endorsement pay between Serena Williams ($13 million) and Maria Sharapova ($23 million) hit a place where the debate is always respectful and reasonable: Twitter.

The argument goes that since Serena is so much better on the court than Sharapova, she deserves more money from companies, a belief so deluded and so at odds with everything we know about sports, entertainment and business that it boggles the mind. (Meryl Streep is the best actress, how dare she not get salary of a Jennifer Lawrence!)

And then the topic quickly turned to race, with the suggestion that Serena doesn’t earn more because she’s black, something that Michael Jordan, the all-time biggest sports endorser, and Tiger Woods, the most apt comparison to Serena (non-white star dominating a traditionally white sport), surely would scoff at.

Serena was asked about this, in a brilliant cover story for The New York Times magazine.

If they want to market someone who is white and blond, that’s their choice. I have a lot of partners who are very happy to work with me. I can’t sit here and say I should be higher on the list because I have won more. I’m happy for her, because she worked hard, too. There is enough at the table for everyone. We have to be thankful, and we also have to be positive about it so the next black person can be No. 1 on that list.

Serena sounds mostly gracious, as she should be. But the entire idea that someone who is better than someone else deserves more in endorsement money is preposterous. Look at Tiger Woods, ranked No. 266 in the world in a single sport but getting the third-most money in endorsements. It’s not outrageous because Tiger’s name still sells things, even if his game is in the toilet and his reputation is right there with it. The market doesn’t care.

Phil Mickelson is maybe the 20th best player in the game and there he is, right below Tiger. How can Phil sleep at night, with Brooks Koepka getting nothing even though he’s ranked five spots ahead of him! Kobe Bryant, who can barely jump anymore, brings in more four times the endorsement money than Chris Paul, another L.A. basketball hero. This is the way it goes in sports and business.

Look at Li Na, a female tennis player who was good for about a few years and earned $5 million more in endorsements than Serena when she was active, not because she was “white and blond” but because she was Chinese and American companies fall all over themselves to get their foot in the door in that untapped market.

There are so many extenuating circumstances that dictate why one athlete makes more in endorsements: a willingness to shill, worldwide appeal, better agents, being multi-lingual, playing a sport that is marketable. I mean, look at the NFL, in which stars barely make any money off the field. They play the most popular sport in America yet Rory McIlroy earns 10 time more in endorsements? He can barely throw a ball!

Is it fair that the best don’t earn the most? Yes. It’s not about being good, it’s about selling product. The bigger concern is that there are only two women (Sharapova and Serena) on the Forbes’ Top 100. But capitalism doesn’t concern itself with such things as equality. Green is all that will ever matter.