Although the difference between male and female may merely be two letters; in sports it means millions of dollars. Sports and athletics are an influential part of many people’s lives. From a young age, boys and girls are raised around sports; some of these little stars continue on with their passions to become professional athletes. Sadly, today only one group of these people are respected how they deserve to be. A portion of these athletes, more specifically women athletes, are facing unfair discrimination. Although some may argue women's sports lack relevance they are in need of a major moral culture shift. Female athletes deserve equal pay, because gender discrimination is unethical, they work just as hard if not harder, and they are …show more content…
Being a strong successful athletes requires a lot of hard work and dedication no matter gender, still women are not receiving the same amount of financial appreciation as men. Carli Lloyd is a very influential player whom has played for the Unites States Soccer team for over 12 years. Along with multiple teammates she has filed complaints against U.S. Soccer because of wage discrimination. Clearly stated by Carli Lloyd, “Each year, the United States men’s and women’s national teams each play a minimum of 20 friendly matches. The top five players on the men’s team make an average of $406,000 each year from these games. The top five women are guaranteed only $72,000 each year”(1). This shows even though women and men are playing the same minimum amount of games, men are still much paid much better. The range from women's top five to men's top five in unacceptable. All ten of these players are putting in tremendous amounts of work, meanwhile only half of them are being properly compensated. Additionally Carli Lloyd explained, “If I were a male soccer player who won a World Cup for the United States, my bonus would be $390,000. Because I am a female soccer player, the bonus I got for our World Cup victory last summer was $75,000”(1). It is completely unfair; women are being treated completely different for achieving the same accomplishment simply because of …show more content…
While women's sports are just as important as men's they are not seen in this manner. Many think that men's are more interesting so decide to only watch them, but women's have a rapid amount of followers and viewers. According to John Walters, “last July’s Women’s World Cup final was the most watched soccer match—men’s or women’s—ever in the U.S., with some 25.4 million viewers”(1).Women's sports are receiving a huge amount of viewers, in soccer even more than their male counterparts. Although the women's soccer team broke a record for soccer viewers, they still will not make as much money as the men’s team. It is completely absurd how women are not being paid as much as men for bringing in even more of an audience. These issues are very common across soccer. Similarly Carli Lloyd explained, “even though U.S. Soccer’s financials confirm that we are the driving force that generates a majority of the revenue for the federation... U.S. Soccer told us, on more than one occasion, that our proposal was not rational”(1). Women are creating a crucial amount of revenue, yet are still not being properly recognized. It is clear to see how women are being short changed; although making an impact they are not being paid equally.As women's sports evolve by creating more revenue and getting more attention the gender pay gap needs to
Turn on ESPN, and there are many female sports reporters, and many reports on female athletes. Flip through Sports Illustrated, and female athletes are dotted throughout the magazine. Female athletes star in the commercials. Female athletes are on the cover of newspapers. Millions of books have been sold about hundreds of female athletes. However, this has not always been the case. The number of females playing sports nowadays compared to even twenty years ago is staggering, and the number just keeps rising. All the women athletes of today have people and events from past generations that inspired them, like Babe Didrikson Zaharias, the All-American Professional Girls Baseball League, Billie Jean King, and the 1999 United States Women’s World
Should college athletes get paid an additional salary? They are an important assets to universities and colleges, so why should they not? How else would universities justify taking advantage of these young men and women? These are questions that arise when pondering the issue. This has been a large controversy over the years of rather or not college athletes should be paid, more specifically football and basketball players. However, they fail to mention that colleges are only considering paying a select few, the stars of the sports. Every single sport in colleges is making revenue for those campuses, making colleges money hungry. Thus, if they decide to only pay a select few, would that leave out women sports all together? Why pay college athletes more on top of everything they already receive? Most college athletes receive free tuition, medical care, meal plans and room and board, which can acquaint to more than a quarter million dollars for their entire college career (Scoop, 2013). Why ask for more? What is this teaching our youth? They should appreciate their chance to do what they love and value the education they are receiving, because that education is far more valuable than a potential sports salary. Even though colleges and college athletes have a few good points on why they believe they should get paid, over all the issue is larger than that, college athletes already make their share of “money” through free education and much more.
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.
Mark Murphy, Director of Athletics at Northwestern University, who participated in an ESPN debate on the topic of paying student-athletes, argues that these athletes currently receive scholarships, whose value, in some instances, totals close to $200,000 over four years. He stated that all student-athletes have made similar commitments to the schools, and that football and basketball players should not be treated any different than other athletes, who participate in sports that are not as popular and lucrative. Paying athletes anything beyond a scholarship, argues Murphy, would cause problems, particularly from a gender equity standpoint. What Murphy seems to referring to when he says "gender equity" is Title IX federal regulations, which cut off federal funding of colleges if those colleges discriminate on the basis of sex. Paying male student athletes more than female student-athletes could possibly be construed as discrimination.
In “2014 and 2015… zero women were head coaches of Division 1 men… teams”(Price E.1). This shows that they thought that women could not be head coaches for men or thought they might be a distraction to them. In “2015, a women earn 80 cents” for every dollar a man earned (Zhai). Men are still give women lower pay. Female workers with the same college degree as men “earn an average hourly wage of $16.58” and the men earn $20.94 (Zhai). Women are still getting lower pay although they have the same degree. The”Women's Policy Research in september[of 2016] found that if [this] continue, women will not receive equal pay until 2059”(Zhai). This shows that women has a long way to go before they earn equal pay. It is clear that for women that they have a long way to go before the glass ceiling in Jobs is shattered for
According to the Women 's Sports Foundation, they claim that paying men more for the same sport gives women in the sport less incentive to push themselves and discourages future female participation in the sport. Which is true, why would women want to play the same sport as men and get paid less money. A good example where women get paid much less money for the same sport is a WNBA. Women’s Sports Foundation says that players from the WNBA in the 2015 season, the minimum salary was $38,913, the maximum salary was $109,500, and the team salary cap in 2012 was $878,000. For NBA players in the 2015-2016 season, the minimum salary is $525,093, the maximum salary is $16.407 million, and the team salary cap is an all-time high of $70 million. David Berri’s article on, “Basketball’s gender wage is even worse than you think,” he talks about that in 2013-14, the Phoenix Suns employed Dionte Christmas for 198 minutes. For those minutes–the only minutes Christmas has ever played in the National Basketball Association–he was paid the league minimum of $490,180. However, Diana Taurasi made the All-Women 's National Basketball Association First Team in 2014 and helped the Phoenix Mercury win the league 's championship. That season, she was paid the WNBA maximum salary of $107,500. This is huge difference between the two
Messner, showed that women’s sports took up only 6.3% of airtime while men’s took up 91.4 %.(1989,2004,p.4). And the hit show Sportscenter was showing men more than women at an astounding ratio of 20:1 (Messner, 1989, 2004, p.4). Also the coverage and the after game interviews are far less than men. They don’t get enough exposure showcase the talent and entertainment of a women’s game. If a man is highly masculine and highly skilled at what he is doing, he gains that respect and popularity so easily without really doing a thing. For men this brings money, merchandise, media coverage, and fans. More fans means more and more money. Which conclusively brings more success to the franchise, and that’s one example why male professional sports overpower female. Women have an extreme disadvantage when it comes to this because they are not popular in means of sporting events, they don’t have as many fans, don’t have a lot of people to buy the merchandise, and they don’t have the money to treat you with a higher salary. You don’t see contracts in the WNBA like you do in the NBA, for example the salary cap for each team in the WNBA is $878,000, while the NBA is $58 million. (Garland, 2012). That is a huge difference for playing the same sport in the same country. This also goes hand in hand with endorsements. Men make millions and millions extra from endorsements which women don’t usually get. For example, LeBron James at 18 years old signed a deal with NIKE for $90,000,000 just because he was good at basketball, Nike is lucky LeBron wasn’t a bust, but you would never see a company risk that type of money with a female athlete that young. (USAToday.com,
One would think that a professional player on an elite team would be making enough money to support herself and continue doing what she loves, but this assumption is sadly false. Rejzovic plays volleyball professionally and has a full-time job as though she is an amateur. According to the chairman of her club team, she is playing the wrong sport and is not of the opposite gender. Rejzovic stated, “Ever since I was a kid, I dreamed of becoming a pro. I thought it would be glamourous, but life as a pro isn’t what I imagined” (Tornkvist, 2016). The discrimination is preventing women from progressing forward in professional sports. Payment has nothing to do with performance because Rejzovic and her team has been number one in the league many times in the past ten years (Tornkvist,
For many years in the United States, equal salary pay for women has been a major issue that women have been fighting for decades. This began back in World War II, when the National Labor Board urged equalize the salary rates for women with the same rates that males were getting the same professions. (Rowen) Although, traditionally most women do not work to provide for their family and there are not so many independent women during World War II. After World War II more women lost their jobs to veterans returning to the workforce. Women in the workforce after the war have been discriminated ever since. The idea of women as weak and cannot perform their jobs still embedded in the mind of some men and were not considered equals to their male counterparts. Women need to fight for equal pay because, women in the work force today is dramatically different from women that was working during World War II. (Rowen) Through studies as well, it shows that women are also more educated during 2002 and still was getting paid less than men. Even though in the 1960 's, the Equal Pay act was, in effect, it still did not help benefit women in the long run.
Women in sports demand quality assurance for their hard work. Sad to say this is not implemented in the sports “world” of women. “One of the theories behind this is that society doesn’t like to see women in roles that go against the norm of what a woman “should be” (Rodriguez).” Fortunately this stems from ignorance and prejudice beliefs. Especially through the media, both of which can be learned. The media can alter sports viewer’s opinions by relaying positive messages toward women’s sports. As well as sports authoritators distributing equal pay for equal work. The abundant amount of support that the media and viewers allocate will allow a higher amount of equality for women in the sports industry. This kind of support will lead women in sports salaries rise and eventually match the hardship of achievements as a minority in today’s sports
Recently a major issue for women in sports is female coaches and their salaries. The salaries of the male coaches in athletics have continuously been on the rise. And on top of that, the male coaches make 159% of the money that female coaches make. Female participation in College athletics are also on the rise. However, the majority of funding in colleges goes into the men's athletic programs.
“A woman is human. She is not better, wiser, stronger, more intelligent, more creative, or more responsible than a man. Likewise, she is never less. Equality is a given. A woman is human,” Vera Nazarian. Unfortunately now in the United States, women are being treated less than their male counterparts, especially when it comes to professional athletics. In an article entitled, Taking a Closer Look at the Gender Pay Gap in Sports, written by John Walters on newsweek.com, he exclaims, “Each player on the USWNT earns $99,000 per year provided the team wins 20 “friendlies” (exhibition matches), the minimum number of matches they would play. By contrast, each men’s player would earn $263,320 for the same feat and would still earn $100,000 if the team lost all 20 games.” Not only does this topic relate to the difference in pay for women and men in soccer but it also relates to all of the other sports like, basketball, tennis and the many other were males participate too in separate organizations. The topic on whether female athletes should be paid the same as their male counterparts, is a massive debate with two opposing sides. On one side of the debate, people believe male driven associations produce more revenue than female driven associations, the competition in male sports is more intense, and more fans want to see thunderous dunks and the athletic ability of males over the lesser abilities of what females can do. On the contrary, female athletics aren 't given the same recognition or praise, females go through the same types of workouts males go through and they participate in the same types of events, and females don 't have the same abilities as males due to the way they ar...
Some people may blame the lack of coverage of women's sport is because not enough people like the game to push to get more broadcast games. While reading an article written by Nathan Keil, he raised a point I found very interesting as to what will help lead to women’s sport earning television rights, starts with money. According to the article, Nathan Keil said; “Money will go to women’s sports as soon as an audience wants to watch women, so the best way to support these women athletes is by attending women’s
When starting off, rookies who get drafted into the NBA start off making $412,718+, whereas in 2016 the rookie players in the WNBA only start off with $39,676 (Basketball Tips), this is the same pay that teachers receive. With receiving this low amount of pay, the women in the WNBA often have to get side jobs in order to pay their bills. The majority of them have to coach during the off-season. Female athletes struggle much more than men athletes do. They always have to cobble together money so they can pursue their dreams, whereas men, on the other hand, are signing $100 million contracts (Rummell, 2014).In this society nowadays it may not come as a surprise because we live in a society where women make 77 cents to a man 's dollar. If you thought that the rookie salaries were bad enough between the WNBA and the NBA, you were sadly mistaken because it gets worse later on in their
Women’s right to equal pay or gender pay gap has been a subject of discussion over the years in the united states, women perform similar jobs to men, but are paid