Women's Underpaid In Pro Sports

“Equal play. Equal pay.” –U.S. Women’s National Team (Reiher). The gender pay gap is surprisingly still a large problem today. Not only in soccer, but in every sport women exert the most effort, yet they do not receive the credit. The U.S. Woman’s National Team should receive an equal amount of pay as the men’s team because they have won more titles, they are better soccer players, and they bring in more income.

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.

Many women professional basketball players work hard, are dedicated, and have a genuine love for the game; however, many of them are very underpaid when compared to the men professional basketball players. The difference between what men and women are paid for the same job is referred to as the gender wage gap. In the United States that gap is 78 cents, so a woman is paid 78 cents for every dollar paid to a man doing the same work. Lynx player Maya Moore said, "We’re not super rich like the guys … but money’s not everything when you’re talking about dynasties and legacies, and inspiring young women and men, and opening people’s minds." Obviously, they do not play for the money, they play because they love the game of basketball. The women basketball players work really hard and inspire more people everyday. They should be awarded and paid the equal amount just as any male basketball player.

"Gender Oppression Involving Men's and Women's Sports." : Analysis of a Scholarly Source: Equal Pay? Not on the Basketball Court" by David Woods. N.p., 28 Oct. 2014. Web. 28 Oct. 2015. .

The US women’s soccer team are only paid about a fourth of what the men are paid, even though they actually preform at a level well above that of the men’s, and create more income for the corporation; In fact, the women’s soccer team made approximately $20 million more money in revenue than the men’s soccer team ("U.S. Women's Team Files Wage-discrimination Action vs. U.S. Soccer"). Another instance of the men’s team earning more money than the women’s team unfairly is that the women were only paid $2 million dollars total when they won the world cup in 2015, while the men’s team (who got to round 16 before they lost) were paid a total of $9 million dollars ("U.S. Women's Team Files Wage-discrimination Action vs. U.S. Soccer"). That means that the women’s team was paid approximately 22% of what the men’s team was being paid, creating a wage gap that is even larger than what the one from the 1960’s. If you go by the logic of paying someone based on the worker’s effort and skill, as it is stated in the Equal Pay Act, than the women’s team should be paid significantly more than the men’s team, not the other way

Equality between people is what makes the United States of America different from other nations. Ironically, in the United States professional soccer leagues there is a dearth of gender equality. This can be seen through the gender difference in salary. In 2013, professional women soccer players were yearly being paid $15,000 each, about nine times less than the men earned (Bloomberg BusinessWeek). Just like the United States, Australia also faces unequal pay between men and women in professional soccer. Many professional women soccer players that can’t support themselves off their salary. This not only makes the players want to quit, but also makes future generations not want to take part in women’s soccer. Sadly, for more than two decades, women soccer players have experienced unequal pay. Over the years, many players have to find another job to support themselves or they quit playing soccer. Leaders of the Women’s Professional Soccer League have made fruitless attempts to resolve this problem, by giving women the same amount of tournament prize money as the men’s team, by raising the women’s salary a few thousand dollars, and by obtaining sponsors for the women’s soccer league. The way to fix the inequality within professional soccer in the United States is to give equal pay to both genders. To accomplish that, the leaders/board members from both the Men’s Soccer League and the National Women’s Soccer League would have the men soccer players’ salary will be lowered to

In the United states females make about seventy seven cents for every dollar a male makes. This is a huge difference and is unequal if both sexes are getting paid for doing similar jobs. Even though this seems like a huge difference in wages, the difference in wage is a huge difference in professional sports. Many would argue that female athletes should get paid the same as male athletes, but there are also many that would argue the opposite. Gender equality laws call for this, but the fact that female athletes do not provide the same profit as male athletes is not noted when it comes to these laws. Next, both males and females spend the same amount of training when it comes to strengthening their teams, but at the same time male athletes do

In comparison since men’s soccer (EPL) is a world sport watched the athletes are getting paid a reasonable amount of money compared to the females. The female’s soccer (WPL) is known in fewer places and is not watched world-wide so the salary caps between male and females is a reasonable amount due to sponsorships. Men’s basketball (NBA) is watched in places around the world and the athletes get paid a proper amount for the sponsorships and how popular the sport is. Females basketball (WNBL) is not watches as much as it is not televised in many places so the athletes don't get paid very much. Tennis players get paid around the same amount of money as the sport is equally know around the world and is televised in many places these gaps are reasonable as the sponsors for the best player are around the same amount for the males and females. After researching and findings these statistics, it has influenced me to believe that male sport athletes should get paid a little bit less than they are now. Or female sport athletes should get paid

We as women go against lots of discrimination based on our genders and that needs to be stopped. Pay inequality isn't at all new news, it has been a problem for a while and women have had to work harder just to earn the same amount as their male coworkers. Before and after the equal pay act was passed in 1963, there has been a large gap in the economy between men and women. In our jobs, all across America we face a pay gap especially in our sport teams. Pay gaps in sports are big problems especially for female athletes.

It’s astonishing to me that there is such a gap still in this day and age. Women athletes work just as hard as men. Same goes for the amount women are paid compared to what men are paid. New.com.au states “This means women are currently earning just 81.8 cents for every dollar their male colleagues earn, down from an average of 85.1 cents ten years

Female athletes are receiving an income but that income is not nearly enough. By way of example, female athletes are paid less in all sports and events they partake in. “On average, an NBA player makes $28,000 per game for a season total of $2.3 million. The average WNBA player makes only slightly more than $30,000 for an entire season” (Delaney). To delve further, the athletes feel this way about the situation as well. “Making the national team is definitely one of my life goals, but the reality of women’s hockey is that you can’t make a living out of it” Jordan Smelker says who plays professional hockey for the Boston Blades (Springer). Not only is there the issue of professionals not getting paid enough, but the college recruits are not offered enough in scholarship dollars. Female college

Women’s professional soccer players should receive equal pay to men’s professional soccer players. Right now, women’s soccer players earn much less than their male counterparts, both from their official salaries as well as corporate sponsorships (Palmer, 2015). This is still true even after just under 23 million Americans watched the U.S. Women’s National Team’s victory in 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup Final against Japan, setting a record for the most watched soccer game in U.S. history (Palmer, 2015). While the U.S. Women’s National Team, who have played in numerous FIFA Women’s World Cups, have subsidized salaries, and some high-profile players have endorsements deals, their salaries are low for professional athletes, which is a serious deterrent to players starting, and staying, in the game (Johnson,

Another issue facing females in sport influencing the pay gap is sponsorship. Currently corporations are tending to steer away from being major sponsor for national female teams, choosing to be the 35th sponsor of dominant male sporting codes (Burke, 2016). This segregation by corporations is teaching society to undervalue female sport. What has caused this? Simply, “ongoing history of the dominance of male sport” has influenced sponsors to deviate from females (Crosswhite, 2016).

To this day, women still aren't equally paid as men are even though they do the same work. In sports women work and try really hard to win and find themselves a living by

Even though women have been fighting for equal rights in the sports industry; It is true that male and females have different