How much of a difference is there really? Well women are generally paid way less in professional sports while men are paid way more. Women's sports are less noticed which leads to the companies not being able to pay them more, but that can change if we make an effort to go watch women's sports too.
Women’s Sports Foundation uses the U.S.’s national soccer teams as an example, “For winning the 2015 Women’s World Cup, the U.S. Women’s National Team won $2 million. Germany’s men’s team took home $35 million for winning the 2014 World Cup. The U.S. men’s team finished in 11th place and collected $9 million, and each men’s team that was eliminated in the first round of the 2014 World Cup got $8 million each, which is four times as much as the
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In the article Taking a Closer Look at The Gender Pay Gap in Sports, John Walters states, “WNBA players are paupers next to their NBA counterparts. The league minimum in the NBA this season is $525,000. The WNBA league minimum last summer was $38,000.” The Men’s NBA player that is payed the least still gets payed over $487,000 more than the highest payed WNBA player. Women's sports are generally payed less than men's by as much as thousands of dollars to even millions.
Tim Wigmore discusses this common issue in his article Sport’s Gender Pay Gap: why are women still payed less than men?, “Women’s treatment in sport has always been a manifestation of wider gender inequality and, as sports evolved and professionalised, became self-perpetuating. The huge funding disparity between male and female sport means that women have had fewer opportunities to play sport, have suffered from inadequate coaching and facilities compared with those enjoyed by men, and have been paid meagre sums, even for playing international
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Those that have played have often not been professional, so had less chance to hone their skills; and the lack of financial rewards mean that many leading players have retired prematurely."
Wigmore shares information he found from a survey in 2014, "Globally, 25 out of 35 major sports pay equal prize money to men and women, found a BBC survey in 2014. Olympians are still not paid prize money by the Games, although most countries offer their medal winners prize money, and sums are equal for men and women."
The Olympic Games is one of the most widely known sports events throughout the world, In Tim Wigmore's article about gender pay gap he gather's an opinion from Collins, "In many ways the Olympic Games in Rio represent a significant staging post in the rise of female sport: 47.7 per cent of competing athletes are women, a record for a summer Games. Yet true pay equality in sport is still far away. “Until there is a fundamental shift towards gender equality across society,” Collins says, “women in sport will always be treated as under-paid second-class citizens.”
The gender pay gap is noticed by a lot of people all around the world , but will it ever actually
The NBA generates far more revenue than the WNBA; as such, it's no surprise that the former's players are paid a higher salary. It's tempting to assume that when we account for the revenue disparity between the NBA and WNBA, the gender wage gap disappears. Unfortunately, that seems to run counter to the data. Even when we consider differences in revenue, there remains a significant gap between the wages paid to WNBA players and their NBA counterparts.
Women have progressed from house wives to business women over the past hundred years. In 1948, 28.6% of the people in the work force were women. In 2015, this percentage has increased to 46.8% (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015). Progression is visible and very possible, but it seems that our chances for equal pay are very improbable. From a person perspective, I had the opportunity to focus on basketball, let my efforts and love for the sport pay for college, and continue on playing in the WNBA. With in-depth research, I quickly reconsidered. Phoenix Mercury’s Diana Taurasi made a maximum salary of $107,800 one season after winning the championship. The NBA team, Phoenix Suns, picked up Dionte Christmas who only played for 198 minutes during the whole season and he obtained the minimum payment of $490,800 just for being a bench warmer (Berri, 2015). It is bad enough that he made $300,000 more than Taurasi, but it is more inconceivable that an NBA starter will receive $14.7 million a
A good example where women get paid much less money for the same sport is a WNBA. The Women’s Sports Foundation says that players from the WNBA in the 2015 season, the minimum salary was $38,913, the maximum salary was $109,500, and the team salary cap in 2012 was $878,000. For NBA players in the 2015-2016 season, the minimum salary is $525,093, the maximum salary is $16.407 million, and the team salary cap is an all-time high of $70 million. David Berri’s article on, “Basketball’s gender wage is even worse than you think,” talks about that in 2013-14, when the Phoenix Suns employed Dionte Christmas for 198 minutes. For those minutes–the only minutes Christmas has ever played in the National Basketball Association–he was paid the league minimum of $490,180.
Traditionally men have dominated the world of sports however in recent year’s women’s sports have become popular and with their new found popularity, women’s sports have evolved into marketable leagues of their own. Although women’s sports took a huge leap forward, women players still don’t receive the same financial compensation for playing the same sports in the same arenas as their male counterparts. In Purse Snatching by Donna Lopiano, she points out sexism may have a huge effect on this financial discrepancy between women and men athletes. Analyzing sports economics may point to a different reason why women are receiving such a compensation disparity.
Mark Murphy, Director of Athletics at Northwestern University, who participated in an ESPN debate on the topic of paying student-athletes, argues that these athletes currently receive scholarships, whose value, in some instances, totals close to $200,000 over four years. He stated that all student-athletes have made similar commitments to the schools, and that football and basketball players should not be treated any different than other athletes, who participate in sports that are not as popular and lucrative. Paying athletes anything beyond a scholarship, argues Murphy, would cause problems, particularly from a gender equity standpoint. What Murphy seems to referring to when he says "gender equity" is Title IX federal regulations, which cut off federal funding of colleges if those colleges discriminate on the basis of sex. Paying male student athletes more than female student-athletes could possibly be construed as discrimination.
Messner, showed that women’s sports took up only 6.3% of airtime while men’s took up 91.4 %.(1989,2004,p.4). And the hit show Sportscenter was showing men more than women at an astounding ratio of 20:1 (Messner, 1989, 2004, p.4). Also the coverage and the after game interviews are far less than men. They don’t get enough exposure showcase the talent and entertainment of a women’s game. If a man is highly masculine and highly skilled at what he is doing, he gains that respect and popularity so easily without really doing a thing. For men this brings money, merchandise, media coverage, and fans. More fans means more and more money. Which conclusively brings more success to the franchise, and that’s one example why male professional sports overpower female. Women have an extreme disadvantage when it comes to this because they are not popular in means of sporting events, they don’t have as many fans, don’t have a lot of people to buy the merchandise, and they don’t have the money to treat you with a higher salary. You don’t see contracts in the WNBA like you do in the NBA, for example the salary cap for each team in the WNBA is $878,000, while the NBA is $58 million. (Garland, 2012). That is a huge difference for playing the same sport in the same country. This also goes hand in hand with endorsements. Men make millions and millions extra from endorsements which women don’t usually get. For example, LeBron James at 18 years old signed a deal with NIKE for $90,000,000 just because he was good at basketball, Nike is lucky LeBron wasn’t a bust, but you would never see a company risk that type of money with a female athlete that young. (USAToday.com,
Another issue that comes into play is the salaries of male professional athletes compared to female professional athletes.
The same should be said about every job so why is it that players, especially in the NFL, NBA and ABC are paid crazy salaries. There needs to be regulations and caps guiding how much a player can make. This would help insure that all sports remain competitive and everyone has a chance to win. There is no shortage in athletes who want to go pro. Due to the lack of requirements, the work schedule, and the fact that their job is to entertain. There needs to be real change in the sports industry. Lowering athletes’ salaries would only hurt the current players’ lifestyles. The ones up and coming would still have an excellent future if they made even 500,000 dollars a year. Which is still seven times higher than the WNBA is willing to pay their athletes. The WNBA are just as serious of a competitor as other sports, whether it be ice skating, wrestling or football. Therefore it’s time to make sure that every athlete women or male should get paid a fair and justifiable
Recently a major issue for women in sports is female coaches and their salaries. The salaries of the male coaches in athletics have continuously been on the rise. And on top of that, the male coaches make 159% of the money that female coaches make. Female participation in College athletics are also on the rise. However, the majority of funding in colleges goes into the men's athletic programs.
We may just not be being told any information. In Lenny Liebmann's article, "Mending the Gender Gap," he reveals that women earn an average of $18,000 less annually than men. He further reports that the US Census Bureau states the male/female pay differential ranges between 15-50%, depending on the industry and the job title. Not to mention that within the Fortune 1000, 95% of all executive positions were held by men in 1997. (62-63)
In summary, Despite opponents argue, fans want to see thunderous dunks and incredible athleticism over the lesser abilities of females, male competitions is more intense and there is more at risk, and male driven associations produce more revenue than female driven associations. It is apparent that male and females are built differently therefore they have different abilities, females go through the same types of events and often have more on the line, and female athletics aren 't given the same recognition or praise. Then, maybe one day female will receive the same amount of pay as their male counterparts. As, Vera Nazarian once implied, “A woman is human. She is not better, wiser, stronger, more intelligent, more creative, or more responsible than a man. Likewise, she is never less. Equality is a given. A woman is human.”
Men even dominate the population of workers in the most dangerous jobs, which happen to pay more in order to attract more workers. An example of this is that we as a workforce see no women in the career fields of “...lumberjacks, iron workers, or Alaskan king crab fishermen nor politicians proposing social engineering to achieve equality in work-related deaths-- an area where 92 percent of the victims are men” (Perry and Biggs). Consider how male and female athletes are viewed. Complaints on how male and female athletes who play the same sport should be paid the same amount. The truth is that they aren’t. Male tennis player are paid more while female volleyball players are paid more than their male counterparts. If female tennis players want to be paid as much as male, then they should play in the men’s league. Taking a look at things from the female side, the top female models are paid ten times as much as the top male models. These predicaments have nothing to do with which sex is “better” than the other. The direct factor in their higher income is the fact that in some fields, a certain sex satisfies the market better than the
While football and basketball players would receive payment without difficulties primarily because of the popularity of the two events, but the question is what amount would go to each student (Meshefejian 2). Finally, college athletes already get money; majority of colleges give notable services to the athletes, who are held to a greater level than the rest of the students. They also have access to the best gymnasiums, receive free health cover from injuries sustained, free food and perhaps most importantly free
When starting off, rookies who get drafted into the NBA start off making $412,718+, whereas in 2016 the rookie players in the WNBA only start off with $39,676 (Basketball Tips), this is the same pay that teachers receive. With receiving this low amount of pay, the women in the WNBA often have to get side jobs in order to pay their bills. The majority of them have to coach during the off-season. Female athletes struggle much more than men athletes do. They always have to cobble together money so they can pursue their dreams, whereas men, on the other hand, are signing $100 million contracts (Rummell, 2014).In this society nowadays it may not come as a surprise because we live in a society where women make 77 cents to a man 's dollar. If you thought that the rookie salaries were bad enough between the WNBA and the NBA, you were sadly mistaken because it gets worse later on in their
The issue is that male athletes are getting paid a higher amount of money than female athletes. Female sport has developed significantly for 50 years. Women now play a wider range of sports and have access to playing at a professional level. Even though the sporting world is still hugely male dominated. Women and men rarely play each other, and women are paid less when compared to men who play the same form of professional sport.