Fixing Gender Pay Gap in Sports

Gender pay gap is a perennial hot topic and has been a frequently revisited issue due to the easily quotable headlines it produces such as 78 cents on the dollar. Although this disparity has been hotly contested and suggested as myth, it still remains a core tenet of the feminist movement.

Recently, it has been increasingly fashionable to use the objectively astronomical gender pay gap in sports to highlight this issue. From evaluating WNBA vs NBA salaries to Ronda Rousey addressing the pay gap in the UFC, this issue has been topping our social conscience. For your average John or Jane Doe worker, no matter if you are a paper pusher or manager, gender does not affect your skill set and performance. The trouble with the sports analogy is that the demands of a professional athlete are not comparable to the common blue or white collar worker. The popular argument in sports is that women like men, require the same amount of training and dedication to their craft. They push their bodies to the limits and suffer the same injuries, so how can the wide margin of compensation be justified? The difference is subtle but important. To put it simply, the limitation of pay in sport is really that it is a skill that has no intrinsic value. If all the pro athletes in the world dropped dead tomorrow, the worst that would happen is that some fans would have some extra free time in their calendars. The fan base dictates the salary. It doesn’t matter how good you are at kicking balls or swinging bats but who’s willing to pay to watch. This makes evaluating salary scale based on total revenue a fair assessment. However, there are other ways to bridge the gap.

In real life, offices and industries are not separated into gender cohorts. We don’t feel the need to have male and female leagues for retail sales, social workers, or executives. Participating in the same playing field is a demonstration that both genders are equally capable in performing in the same arena. The pay gap in sports could disappear if they simply opened coed leagues. Women would be afforded the same minimum salaries and membership to the same player unions. But it’s not quite that simple. I think even the most staunch feminist would agree that there are physical barriers to just blending sports leagues together and I’m sure managers would not pick equally from each talent pool.

The real solution I suppose is that the gender pay gap in sports could be fixed if the fan base demanded it. Ultimately, the consumers of sports are the bosses and if you have a distaste for how the players are compensated, don’t support the sport or voice your opinion. Of course, leaving your house to protest that your favourite female athlete should get Y millions of dollars instead of X millions of dollars is a difficult proposition so maybe they do make enough. At least enough that prevents anybody from forcing a change.