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.
NaBUru38
Guest
I'd like to see more mixed sports at the Olympics, for example relay races in cycling, swimming and running.
SM
Guest
It basically does come down to this. The very few women I know that watch sport only do so occasionally, and with the exception of tennis, would only watch men's sport.
Fiddlesticks
Guest
Great comment
John
Guest
I wonder when an article will address the disparity between the earnings of male and female models.
bryan
Guest
Women's sport often seems and feels slow compared to the blokes, and lacks a bit of dynamic power. It's why the casual fan normally doesn't watch it too much. However, in some sports, cricket comes to mind, it has a hell of a lot of tactics, strategy and skill, which appeals to die hard fans. And the reasoning is simple. The ball takes longer to get to the batswoman, and their reflexes are the same as a guy's. Therefore the ball has to do more on the way to the batswoman to fool her.
Joe
Guest
Come off it Wildy, it's all about supply and demand. If the demand was there women would be paid the same. Money comes from the broadcasters, they pay based on how many people watch. No one watches the VFL instead of the AFL because it's of a lower quality. The same goes for a lot of women's sports. I want to watch who can hit the ball the furthest in golf, hit the hardest in tennis but be able to run around the court (sorry Serena), bowl the fastest in cricket and hit a huge six. I'm not going to pay to watch a lower quality, and it seems the majority of people agree. It would be nice to just give out money like that, but where would it come from? Supply and demand Andrew, supply and demand.
Onside
Guest
Get women to support womens sport.
peeeko
Guest
there is nothing new here at all. Why do sports people get paid? because people watch them. it doesnt matter how hard you train, its how many people are interested. you could argue that rowers train hard, why dont they get paid as much as golfers? are WNBA teams een viable or are they paid for by the NBA? as for your comment "With this increase, the disparity between women’s and men’s sporting salaries is becoming increasingly obvious" you could have said that same comment 5/10/20/40 years ago