Do Female Athletes Deserve Equal Pay?

When people think of current social issues going on in the present day they think of tax rate, abortion, racism, and unemployment. There is another social issue that not many people have quite realized, gender inequality within sports. Gender inequality has been an important social issue for a while now, especially the pay gap between male and female athletes. For example, According to “Sue Bird vs Lebron James Comparison: $215K vs. $37.44M Salary, $11K vs. $370K Bonus For 2020 Championship”,Sue Bird and Lebron James both have 17 seasons played and 4 championships, yet Sue Bird’s salary is $215,000 and Lebron James’s salary is $37.44 million. Some people may think that women athletes should be paid the same as male athletes and some may think not, however,  women athletes do deserve equal pay, however due to the less amount of games played, lower viewership, and revenue, female athletes are not able to have the same pay as male athletes. 

The first reason why female athletes cannot have equal pay is due to the less amount of games played than male athletes. According to “Opinion: Women athletes do not deserve equal pay”, it mentions how, “The amount of games played in a season is also a factor in how much revenue a league can bring.” (Wong). This affects the salary of a female athlete because if more games are played in a season it will bring in more revenue allowing that league to distribute more money towards the players. Another piece of evidence to support this is that, “In a whole NBA season, 1,230 games are played in a regular season and 105 games are played at max if every series played in seven games.” ,while, “In a whole WNBA season, there are 204 games played and a maximum of 35 playoff games if played to the max of five games.” (Wong). This data represents the difference between the games played between both leagues which reveals the difference in how much revenue the two leagues can make depending on the amount of games played.  

Another reason female athletes cannot have equal pay is due to the lower viewership female leagues have compared to male leagues. Supporting evidence for this reason is how, “The NBA is broadcasted in 96 countries…the WNBA is broadcasted in 24 countries.” (Wong). The amount of countries a league broadcasts in can affect the salary of the athletes because if a league can broadcast in more countries than it will be able to bring in more revenue, which can further boost the amount of money the athlete can receive, and if the NBA broadcasts in more countries than the WNBA then it would make sense that male athletes would make more money. Basketball is not the only example of this. Another example of this is how in the, “...Wimbledon men’s final had an average 3.83 Million viewers…2019 Wimbledon women’s final, it averaged a viewership rating of 1.7 and 2.44 million viewers.” (Wong). Tenis is just the same as basketball as the men's league brings in more viewers than the women's league allowing the male athletes to receive more money than the female athletes. 

The last reason why female athletes are not able to receive equal pay as male athletes is because of the unequal revenue income both leagues are able to produce. For example, “...the NBA had $7.4 billion in revenue, while the WNBA had $60 million in revenue during the 2019 season.” (Wong). Since the NBA brings in more revenue than the WNBA, the NBA is able to give more money to their players compared to the WNBA athletes. Another example is how, “NBA players are given at least 53% of the revenue generated…The WNBA generated $60 million in revenue and distributed $12.3 million of the league’s revenue to the players.” (Wong). According to this evidence, the NBA produces $7.34 billion more, and distributes 32.5% more of their revenue than the WNBA to their players, meaning the NBA can distribute more of their revenue to their players because of the less percentage of revenue they have to spend into their other things such as maintenance and staff.

In conclusion, women athletes are unable to have equal pay as male athletes. Even though some people may think that they are able to have equal pay because of female athlete role models like Serena Williams and Venus William who have proved that they deserve and are able to make equal pay as male athletes. Therefore, female athletes should be able to have equal and deserve the same salary as male athletes, but due to lower revenue, viewership, and number of games played than male athletes, they are not able to have equal pay.