Being an elite athlete in the 21st century is becoming more lucrative as professionalism within sport reaches an all time high.
With this increase, the disparity between women’s and men’s sporting salaries is becoming increasingly obvious. Women are expected to play, train and travel for elite sporting competitions while getting paid peanuts compared to their male counterparts.
There is an obvious lack of money in women’s professional sport. Team games such as soccer, basketball and netball display this wage inequality more than individual sports such as golf.
Golf however still has a long way to go. Total prize money for the 2014 Men’s PGA tour was over $340 million and is more than five times that of the 2015 LPGA Women’s tour purse of $61.6 million. Similar discrepancies exist throughout professional sports:
For a WNBA player in the 2015 season, the minimum salary was $38,913 and the maximum salary was $109,500. The team salary cap in 2014 was $901,000. For NBA players in the 2015-2016 season, the minimum salary is $525,093 while Kobe Bryant leads the league for maximum salary with a whopping $25 million.
The NBA team salary cap is at an all-time high of $70 million and is set to peak in the coming years with the imminent TV rights deal set to be issued.
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 pocketed $8 million each, which is four times as much as the 2015 women’s championship team.
Women’s sport doesn’t bring in enough money to pay their athletes adequately – period. It lacks the commercial success of men’s sport. One notable exception is the UFC and their female star, Ronda Rousey. Rousey reportedly made $6.5 million dollars ($3 million in fight purses) during the 2014 financial year purely because of UFC’s popularity and huge revenue.
In a perfect world this inequality wouldn’t exist. Sporting bodies, broadcasting and marketing companies and the general public need to rally behind women’s sport to enhance its appeal.
People need to attend, watch and support women’s sport. It’s a long way from becoming a reality but a little bit goes a long way! Support our women and I guarantee you will be in awe of these amazing athletes.
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