A Fixed Game: The Gender Pay Gap in Sports
JEC SAN FRANCISCO — They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and the combined net worth of the two basketball stars, Sue Bird (left) and Dwyane Wade (right), makes this one worth 178 million dollars. Yet despite being regarded as two of the greatest players to play in their respective leagues, Dwyane Wade accounts for 170 million of their shared sum. That means that for each of the sixteen years he played in the NBA, Wade made more in his salary than Sue Bird made in her entire career.
But it’s not just basketball where this disparity is apparent — and when observed through a comparative lens, the contrast is stark. For example, in 2019, PGA men’s golfers had an average salary of $1,235,495. LPGA women’s golfers made an average of $48,993. In soccer, an MLS player earned $410,730. His female counterpart in the NWSL would’ve earned $35,000. A major league female softball player earned an average of $6,000 in 2019. A major league baseball player earned $4,031,549.
Obviously, these statistics allude to a larger problem at hand. But what complicates the issue is the significant involvement of a third party: the media. In fact, the media — and its subsequent benefactors — is responsible for a vast majority of the capital that professional athletes earn. This brings up a common counterargument: the idea that women aren’t earning as much because they aren’t bringing in nearly as much revenue. Viewership for the 2018 NBA finals was at over 10 million, whereas the WNBA failed to reach even a quarter of a million. It’s true that sponsors and advertisers have capitalized where they see the heaviest cash flow, allowing the respective leagues to make as much (or as little) as they have, thus furthering the concept that viewership is the root of the inequality. But as it turns out, the problem may not lie entirely in the inequality, but rather in the inequity.
As it turns out, the NBA pays its players between 49–51 percent of the league’s revenue, while WNBA players earn a maximum of 22.8 percent. WNBA player Skylar Diggins-Smith remarked:
“I was even surprised to hear that number… We’re not even talking about $200 million salaries or anything like that. It’s just off the revenue that we bring in. Getting that same percentage (as NBA players), and not even getting half of that is kind of appalling. It’s staggering.”
If it’s true that a significant contributor to the financial disparity between gender in sports lies within the WNBA’s own executive body and salary choices, then a potential solution may ironically lie in a male sports league. Major League Baseball was recently locked out as the MLB Players’ Association protested the collective bargaining agreement that regulates the terms and conditions, including wages, of the players. The union forced the executive body to negotiate more fairly for their pay by sitting out and cutting off the revenue they bring in. Recent strikes have occurred in the NBA during the 1998–99 season and the NHL during the 2004–05 season and have led to successful outcomes for the players. If womens’ leagues like the WNBA were to do the same, they might be able to achieve a similar result. Although it would take a collective effort to bring significant change, there is practically unanimous support of female athletes to promote such a resolution; now it’s just about bringing it to fruition.
Even if men and women remain unequally paid in sports, equity is certainly achievable for the latter. As Major League Baseball deals with its own financial conflicts, time will tell if women’s sports leagues will follow suit in meeting their players’ demands to achieve a more equitable environment.
