Gender Pay Gap in Sports: What do we do?
For the people that watch the NBA, you know one of the loudest characters in the sport is Draymond Green. Green is also one of the more polarizing figures in the NBA and has never been one to shy away from voicing his opinion.
On March 27th, in a series of tweets, Green seemed to be blaming female athletes for making “complaints” about the pay disparity and lack of investment in women’s sports rather than taking action. United States Women’s football player, Megan Rapinoe, replied, ripping into Green. To cut a long story short, she wanted him to be more informed. He argued his tweets were misunderstood, even saying, “I am on their side.” The real issue with Green’s comments is that he wants women to come up with a solution to a problem that was not their fault.
Male sports has had a huge headstart on women’s sports. The reason behind the headstart is that historically sports were built around the physical attributes of men. This was explained by Dr. Laura Claus who called it a system of pure meritocracy, in which whoever is the stronger, faster, more skilled athlete would be the winner. Based on that, if women play against men they would lose.
In the first Olympic Games, in 776BC, in Ancient Greece, the events included sports such as human and chariot races, wrestling, jumping, disk, and javelin throwing. All of these to showcase the physical abilities of men.
However, we are now in 2021. You would think that society has moved past the concept that women cannot do what men do, but the statistics would suggest otherwise. The statistics would say that female athletes are still seen as inferior to their male counterparts, who have had the time to build up fanbases and viewership, which generate a large amount of revenue.
In a statement made by Novak Djokovic a couple of years ago, he said that men should earn more money than women, as statistics show their matches attract a wider audience. The sad part is that he is not wrong in terms of audience share. A tennis match between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal is likely to get more views than a tennis match between Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams. However, with the increase in social media and advertising, women’s sports revenue has seen an increase but we can still do better.
