pros and cons of equal pay in sports

But, with all this growth, are mens and womens earnings in line? At the same time, there's very little downside if a player happens to go bust, because even top rookies earn only about $50,000 a year. It maps out the state of play in all . Lets take a closer look at the professional athlete salary statistics for three sports that have made headlines when it comes to the gap in professional pay: basketball, soccer and tennis. AT THE NBA All-Star Game in Charlotte in 2019, where athletes met to discuss their collective bargaining agreement, NBA commissioner Adam Silver ran into Terri Jackson, executive director of the WNBA Players Association. The average American woman earns 81% of what an average American man earns, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But once two sides establish good faith in a negotiation, both can see spending -- or sacrifice -- as an investment. And marathoners varied from $10,000 to $141,667 (in the Boston Marathon men's field) to $1,667 to $200,000 (in the Boston Marathon women's field). Building an. But while women's clubs are sharing some of the new pitches (and a handful of NBA facilities too), when it comes to securing arenas as primary occupants, the women's game has barely arrived at the table. Jackson met with Engelbert even before her hiring was official and told her the players were concerned about salary and compensation, player experience, and health and wellness. The dollar is almost equal in value to the euro. Golden State Warriors player Stephen Curry was on track to make more than $40 million in salary alone during the 201920 season. They could, for example, have tighter shorts." Since then, the womens team has won four FIFA Womens World Cup titles. It was an unprecedented moment for a commissioner of a professional sports league and a head of a union: The labor deal they were about to negotiate could become a major platform for women's empowerment. In 2019, the teams in the FIFA Womens World Cup shared a $30 million prize pool. Viewing stories about men's sports was like "watching that classic 1960s Batman TV show (Bam! And it can take decades for leagues and franchises to develop faith and establish their footing. Meanwhile, listening to announcers talk about women's sports "was usually like hearing someone deliver a boring afterthought, with an obvious lack of enthusiasm.". That includes outlays by committed owners with deep pockets, rather than the unstable financing that has so often plagued franchises in women's sports. By . It seems that a storm was brewing in the beginning of the decade. Agents can be advocates for fairer wages and better benefits. Successful sports build enough familiarity and loyalty that their followers spread, find one another and reach a critical mass that, like a chain reaction in a nuclear power plant, creates a new energy that feeds on itself over time. For countless women, the economic disparities have been magnified by the pandemic. The NBA commissioner complained publicly that the WNBA was losing more than $10 million a year, but that number said more about how the women's game was still small scale than about any significant damage to the bottom line of NBA teams. In September 2019, Californias Governor Gavin Newsom signed into effect Californias Equal Pay to Play Act, mandating that any organization that hosted mens and womens competitions in an event being held on Californias public lands (land belonging to the state), must compensate the athletes equally. * Mina Kimes talks with two-time World Cup and Olympic soccer champion Julie Foudy for a candid, inside look at the battle over fair pay for female players. Even compared with other fields traditionally dominated by men, it's far harder for women to break into the upper ranks of compensation in sports. That's the approach taken by Finnie Bevin Cook, an economist who compiled a report for the plaintiffs in the equal pay lawsuit. Tax exemption lowers interest on debt and so reduces the amount that cities and teams must pay for a stadium. "Female players are pretty, if you excuse me saying so," former FIFA president Sepp Blatter opined in 2004. The players wanted a viable league where they could build careers, not just part-time jobs. Pow!) The act states that all women should receive "equal pay for equal work". But they were actually paid just $27.7 million. Her male counterpart, Ilie Nastase, was awarded $3,500 . It is impossible to have equal spending on male and female athletic programs based on the dynamics of the sport as well as the equipment needed to operate. Art IV. Cook found that under the men's wage scales, members of the women's team would have earned $91.8 million from 2014 to 2019. These professionals can help ensure you get your game on in a way that's both entertaining and healthy. Your joys and agonies and memories increase exponentially as your network of friends and family involved with the same team expands. While the pay disparity didnt change, there is one aspect of the Forbes top-ten list that did. By submitting this form, you consent to receive emails and calls from a representative of Adelphi University, which may include the use of automated technology. As a woman in society today, I do not think a male should be paid more than I for the same job. NBA players receive about 50% of the leagues revenues. That hourly rate can be any number above the federal wage floor, or minimum wage, of $7.25 per hour. On May 1, a federal judge sided with U.S. Soccer on most of the key issues at stake in the lawsuit. These short-term issues could blow up U.S. Soccer's priorities, and new labor negotiations are an even bigger threat. "The NWSL has the opportunity to be the best league in the world," says Becca Roux, executive director of the U.S. Women's National Team Players Association. And this stark disparity has hardly budged for more than a decade: the pay gap between men and women has sat at 80%-83% since 2004. Meanwhile, WNBA revenues were probably around $70 million, estimates David Berri, a professor of economics at Southern Utah University and author of numerous studies about women's sports. Maybe most important, while TV ratings were way up, promotion and marketing remained extremely limited. The National Womens Soccer League played their first game in 2013, following the end of the Womens Professional Soccer league the previous year. Biracial women say Meghan is proof racism and privilege coexist. But one of the biggest moves was the WNBAs 2020 community bargaining agreement. Pros and cons of the wage gap. Keeping education at the center of college sports Since its inception in 1906, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has governed intercollegiate sports and enforced a rule prohibiting college athletes to be paid. Apprentices receive a nationally recognized credential in their industry upon completion of the program, and may even earn academic credit toward a college degree. But here's the thing. Franklin Roosevelt proposed a maximum wage as a fixed amount. The service charges similar fees to Square, and its transaction processing fees of 2.9% are on par with many credit cards. Source: Forbes (men 2010, 2019; women 2010, 2019). "Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball. "It centers contracts around the men's World Cup and uses TV coverage of women's games as a dry run for the men.". Forty is a stark reminder that while this decade has seen a great deal of chatter and growth for equal pay in sports, the compensation gap remains deep and far-reaching. So are the top 20 and the top 30. ESPN, for instance, dedicated more than 16,000 hours across all its platforms and partners to the programming of women's sporting events last year, up from 7,500 in 2015 and just 1,500 in 2010. And it is also contending with at least four other lawsuits, so its legal bills will total about $9 million this year. According to the same article, "A majority 52% of black respondents are strongly or somewhat in favor of paying college athletes, while only 15% strongly or somewhat oppose the idea. Gender equity in tennis has been in the spotlight for decades, stretching back beyond Billie Jean Kings threat to boycott the 1973 U.S. Open. Essentially, the women want to partner in growing their game. A league requires seed money to grow. These deals have been great for teams -- and for MLS; its expansion fee has rocketed to $325 million. As Berri puts it: "Men love investing in men's sports.". Sports are great for middle schoolers but it's your job as a parent to make sure that they don't take priority over your child's academics. In another effort to ensure equal pay for women in sports, the Even Playing Field Act, introduced by Sens. The pay-gap is shocking, however, sexism is not the real cause. Instead, the federation proceeded to file thousands of pages of documents asserting that, as one motion put it, "WNT and MNT players do not perform equal work requiring equal skill, effort and responsibility under similar working conditions." In the 1997-98 season, NBA rookies made 176% more than WNBA rookies. Fee structure. He also found that the WNT made more money than the men's team from 2015 to 2019. It comes down to basic economics. The gender pay gap, however, is no longer narrowing as fast it did earlier. Overall, the average salaries of professional female athletes are making small-scale gains over time. The disparity is so wide that the money pulls skilled men into a career in sports, while the lack of money makes it impossible for many talented women to earn a living as an athlete. Up until 2020, the WNBA received 20% of their leagues revenues. Engelbert wrote those items down. New arenas allow teams to improve their game experience, hike prices and build up adjoining land. U.S. District Court Judge R. Gary Klausner held that the women's national team had agreed to the terms of the deal that paid them. ", The salary gap between men and women athletes echoes the huge difference in revenues between men's and women's sports. They're not just bringing their skills to market, they're trying to make sure the market supports their skills. However, the men still come out ahead internationally. "I believed," he said, "the WNT was much more likely to qualify for and succeed in their tournament than the MNT was.". If you are interested in equalizing athlete pay, or if you want to push for better compensation for players overall, consider a career in sport management. Now, comparing the finances of the U.S women's and men's national soccer teams is complicated. At peak popularity, marketability and leverage, they are also seeking more equitable spending on coaching. Pay transparency legislation facilitates effective application of the equal pay principle in practice. They claim, for example, that women can earn a. 2016: Five USWNT players filed a wage-discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Beyond the call for equal pay for athletes, will come calls for equal pay for coaches, administrators and executives. In the United States, women make up 24% of Congress, 18% of surgeons, 10% of Christian church leaders. But, my stand on this is simple, the pay goes to the one that can perform the job duties. As an example, the Global Sports Salary Survey (GSSS), produced by the U.K.-based research firm Sporting Intelligence, counted 137,021 men who played professional soccer in the world in 2017 and just 1,287 women -- a ratio of 106 to 1. By the first Equal Pay Day in 1996, women earned 74 cents for a dollar of men's earnings; now the figure is up to 79 cents. There is still quite a ways to go to close this gap, but the NWSL is making changes to offer more competitive compensation. Ninety-three percent who cross the finish line retain employment, according to the Labor Department. You'll pay 2.7% on in-store purchases and a 1.9% fixed fee on QR code transactions. Whether professional players receive salaries or individual prize money from competitions, male athletes in basketball, golf, soccer, baseball and tennis make anywhere from 15% to nearly 100% more than female athletes. In 2019, FIFA proposed doubling the womens prize pool to $60 million in the 2023 World Cup, and announced that they would spend $1 billion on womens soccer over a period of four years. And over the next two, it has plans to spend down its surplus, which swelled to more than $160 million after the Copa America in 2016, to about $50 million. The NFL was the same age in 1943, a year when it fielded only eight teams, including the Brooklyn Dodgers, and averaged a third of its 2019 per-game attendance. Women in sports are harnessing their brands and their power and will have the equity they deserve in the decade to come. "When I think of pay equity, I think of the opportunity that the NBA and other male sports leagues have to be successful.". That's the chain reaction of network externalities. Tennis is one of the few sports where the United States women, on average, make more than men. While men have always played on grass, FIFA staged the 2015 Women's World Cup at arenas with artificial turf, which American striker Sydney Leroux, one of dozens of athletes who protested, likened to "running pretty much on cement." The two sides channeled that willingness into the areas Engelbert and the league's negotiators discussed with Jackson, Ogwumike and the players, and reached an eight-year agreement in January. What are the pros and cons of compensation for college athletes? Under the old CBA, athletes who had children lost pay when they lost work time; now they will have maternity leave with full compensation, plus space set aside in arenas for nursing. 1 pick in the NBA draft in 2012. Three experts debate the issue. "However, it is not reasonable or fiscally sound for U.S. Soccer to make up the gap. So did Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber. This offers flexibility in hours,. But when it comes to getting the kind of daily, comprehensive news, analysis and statistics that multiple media outlets and platforms routinely provide for men's teams, most women's sports still lag. "U.S. Soccer has purposefully withheld and obscured the revenues that it has received through similar marketing deals. Silver was ready to hear about investment and commitment and even empowerment. That's one kind of equity: equality. In the same way, if you're the only fan you know of a new sports team, your experience will be extremely limited. Meanwhile, the organization's financial reports projected just $131 million in total revenue from the 2019 Women's World Cup, a number that spread like wildfire among outlets last summer. federal and state laws that govern equal pay. If there's a way forward, it might be thanks to one more surprise from the past few months: The WNBA's new CBA is fundamentally different from every past labor agreement in women's sports. The new WNBA calendar will make it harder to play overseas and stateside in the same year, which could force athletes earning big money internationally to make some tough decisions. But many players say this is not enough. Both mens and womens basketball used the unusual circumstances to play with online options and enhance the at-home fan experience, and the WNBA saw its highest draft viewership in 16 years during the 2020 virtual draft. December 2019, the WNBA re-extends negotiations for its new collective bargaining agreement after opting out in November 2018. Source: MLS 2013; 2020; NWSL 2013, 2020 Comparable worth, by contrast, seeks to expand the concept of fairness in ways that clearly violates simple economic reality. Every year since the Womens National Basketball Associations inaugural season in 1997, the highest-paid womens basketball player has earned less than the lowest-paid National Basketball Association player. Using EdTech Skills in Academia, Where Can EdTech Take You? Online/Blended Degree and Certificate Programs. "Every time FIFA bundles broadcast rights, it ascribes no value to the Women's World Cup," Roux says. News coverage of women's sports seems to have shifted considerably in just the past few years, though there aren't any published studies yet to say by just how much. How asexual and aromantic people make Valentines Day their own, For American Muslim women, hijabs affirm their right to choose. Loss of mortgage interest deduction If you itemize, you can deduct home mortgage interest on the first $750,000 ($375,000 if married filing separately). The research also said equal pay would . That equaled the prize money for a single winning mens team a decade earlier. Six Reasons Why Equal Pay Is Still Important The current financial crisis makes it more important than ever for Congress to guarantee that all workers receive a fair and equal wage. While 2020 brought unexpected changes to both the NBA and the WNBA, with both leagues seasons affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the CBA still remains. Meanwhile, the U.S. women want more than a new pay structure. Adelphi Universitys MS in Sport Management empowers students to pursue their unique passions and better support the sports they love. THE CHANTS BEGAN almost as soon as the U.S. women's soccer team won the World Cup last July. Make sure your child finishes all their homework and that he maintains good grades while participating in sports. Were excited to announce the expansion of our coverage of gender and identity. But the pay gap is still wide. "We have to consider why the revenue is different, what bias and discrimination are in play," says Lindsay Kagawa Colas, senior vice president for women's sports at Wasserman, whose clients include a bevy of the WNBA's biggest stars, such as Diana Taurasi and Maya Moore, as well as gymnast Katelyn Ohashi and swimmer Simone Manuel. Jackson, whose husband and son are both NBA veterans, kept asking, "What motivates you?" But the number was wrong. For instance, 994 million people watched at least one minute of the 2019 Women's World Cup on linear television, a 30% increase from 2015, while 3.26 billion watched a minute or more of the men's World Cup in 2018, up just 2% from four years earlier. The players are locked into negotiations for better salaries and benefits (including things like travel accommodations, postseason job opportunities and per diems). That is a staggering gap. Cindy Parlow Cone, then U.S. Soccer's vice president, condemned the USSF's legal arguments. Indeed, the $30 million awarded to all of the athletes combined at the 2019 Women's World Cup would not even equal the $38 million the French national team made after winning the 2018 men's World Cup, where prize money totaled $400 million. While compensation for women has improved over the past decade, the gap still extends to even the worlds highest-paid players. Consent is needed to contact you, but is not a requirement to register or enroll. The athletes did want a larger share of league revenues. In 2016, ESPN doubled their rights fee to show WNBA games, paying $25 million a year. Regardless of gender, professional athletes are drafted to receive professional pay. That's the other kind of equity: ownership. An equal pay claim can be addressed by evidencing that there was some valid reason that explained the difference in pay (and was not based on gender or tainted by discrimination), such as that the higher-paid employee had longer service, more duties or greater responsibility. The athletes are planning to appeal, but at least for the moment, crucial parts of the suit have been dismissed. In the midst of the brewing storm were the worlds top athletes who were beginning to realize their value and how their organizations, endorsers and the media had been significantly undervaluing their talents and influence. "USA! According to the. Theres no doubt that its heat will begin to singe sports, like golf, that have been relatively quiet about its inequities. In March 2017, USA Hockey reached a deal with the players on its womens team after the entire team threatened to go on strike over unequal pay. MALE AND FEMALE athletes are paid on entirely different scales, to the extent that examples can seem literally unbelievable. Who is the player of the year in every women's college basketball conference? Heading into this season, he had made six All-Star teams, and he created 0.247 win shares per 48 minutes in 2018-19. Fortunately, many of their demands were met with favorable responses in the form of support from the sports community and general public and in the form of changes to policies and practices. THAT'S IT! But there's no clear business reason for FIFA to keep acting like the Women's World Cup is worth less than 10% of the men's game. The prize fund for the 2019 Women's World Cup was $30m (23.4m), with winners the . So let's take a look at the reasons why professional female athletes don't deserve equal pay. Last year, Delanie Gourley, a star pitcher in National Pro Fastpitch softball, disclosed that she makes less than a Yankees bat boy. But the truth is more complicated, because a league's financial data also embeds its history, opportunities and labor relations. The pay disparity in professional soccer exists at an international level as well. Over the past two years, U.S. Soccer has spent half its budget (which was $131.8 million in 2019) on management expenses and youth programs and devoted less than 30% to athlete pay and benefits. In 2017, for example, a majority of the most popular sports sites on the Internet didn't dedicate even one page to a women's sport or league, according to research by Berri. So how exactly can it be concluded that "too much" is too much? So what's really at stake? Here are the upsides and downsides. While MLS and the NWSL have only been around for a few decades, the United States has fielded national soccer teams in World Cups since 1930 (US Mens National Team) and 1991 (US Womens National Team). Pros of Gender Inequality in Sports: Weaves out weak female players: Because female athletes are forced to work harder with hopes of obtaining the same opportunities and rewards male athletes do, more often than not, only dedicated and gifted female athletes make it to an elite level. He certainly was right about that. But as recent lawsuits and even Twitter battles show, we still have a ways to go. The answer isn't black and white; rather, an inflated salary is a relative thing. The public outcry led to companies, like Nike, changing their stance on endorsing and supporting athletes through pregnancy and motherhood. However, the past decade has seen some attempts to narrow that gap. Prestige / It's a select number of people by definition. 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Suppose we take the various rates of compensation for the men's national team -- bonuses for appearances and wins in friendlies, tournaments and World Cups -- and apply them to the members of the women's national team, player by player. Challenging . Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on June 24, also seeks to ensure fair and equal pay and conditions for all members of U.S. national teams. As important as all these changes are, their total cost is about $1 million per WNBA team per year, which means the proportion of league revenues paid to players will rise only from about 20% to approximately 30%. "The good news is that folks outside the federation, from sponsors to broadcasters to partners, are incredibly bullish on the U.S. women's national team and on women's football," Levinson says. Volunteer for the team. The 2020 agreement was also a big step forward in terms of WNBA players salary potential. 2020] MOVING TOWARDS EQUAL PAY FOR PROFESSIONAL FEMALE ATHLETES 321 B. U.S. Soccer is at a crossroads: Whatever happens with the equal pay lawsuit, the USSF has to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement with the women's national team by the end of next year, and its long-term relationship with the National Women's Soccer League is up in the air. Source: Womens National Basketball Players Association (2019, 2020). Leaves possibility of subjectivity. In 2018-19, the federation reported total revenue of $115,128,170, a growth of 160% over the last decade. The US women's soccer team has brought the conversation to the forefront over the last three years. This past March, the USSF even declared it was entitled to treat men better because of biology: "The overall soccer-playing ability required to compete at the senior men's national team level is materially influenced by the level of certain physical attributes, such as speed and strength.". The EEOC never publishes a response, but the players received a 30% raise among other benefits in 2017. 31 Equal Pay Act of 1963, 29 U.S.C. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 made it illegal to pay women less than men for the same work, but here we are in 2022 and little has changed . The squads face different adversaries, at different levels of competition, on different schedules, including World Cup cycles in different years. Women and men sports have not been equal, not even in 2019. Women can't compete on the world stage The Aussie Sevens women's team swept the World Series tournament, making them hot favourites for gold at Rio 2016. Men are able to play the aggressive role in sports, while women are criticized for not being "ladylike." (These numbers include gate receipts but not sponsorship or broadcast-rights money, which account for about half of all USSF revenue but which the federation does not report separately for the MNT and WNT.) For instance, NBA teams took in a total of $8.8 billion this year, according to Forbes. And make no mistake, fans today have more access than ever to the games played by female athletes, because a burgeoning number of networks and apps, hungry to acquire and offer new content, are programming all kinds of formerly "niche" sports. "It's more merit-based, it will make us feel more professional and well-established, and kids are going to be able to see you can have a full-on career in the WNBA.". Since most major sports are at around 50%, you could look at that and say the players are still leaving considerable cash on the table. And while companies have shown more interest in backing female athletes recently, men's leagues and teams still captured 93% of the $31 billion that corporations around the globe spent on sports last year, according to a November 2019 report by the German research firm Statista. Each league and sports organization has its own structure of compensation and benefits. Millions of dollars separate the women and men when it comes. Pay is so low that it has compelled most American athletes to play overseas as well as in the WNBA just to make a living, increasing their wear and tear and their injury risk. But by the time Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and their mates were celebrating their triumph, the world knew they would earn just $4 million collectively, a fraction of what their male counterparts had taken home a year earlier. American soccer's governing body agreed to pay $24 million, and made a commitment to equalize pay and bonuses to match the men's team. Recognition / Tangible proof of your professional accomplishments. Despite some women's sports receiving a significant amount of interest, in general, women's sports have a lower viewership compared to men's sports, which is part of why they earn less money. And these provisions have tilted strongly, almost exclusively, toward men's sports for decades. "This new CBA is going to dramatically change how this league operates," Bird says. Teams will provide housing with two bedrooms for athletes with children, individual hotel rooms on the road and flight upgrades. Editor's note: This story is part of As Equals, CNN's ongoing . When the U.K.'s reporting requirements revealed that budget airline Ryanair had a gender pay gap of 72% - with women making up 3% of the top quarter of earners - the all-male senior management. In 1942, as President of the United States, FDR proposed a 100 percent tax on all individual income over $25,000, about $365,000 in today's dollars.