Who Needs a Paycheck Anyway?
Women athletes are putting in 10 times the work, for a fraction of the men’s salary
Women are fighting for more than 1.2 percent of their male counterpart’s salaries.
January 29, 2019
Whether an athlete plays basketball or golf or soccer, women are proving their worth and talent, time and time again, only to get a check telling them they will have to keep working after retiring from the sport they love.
The National Basketball Association, the men’s basketball league most people refer to as the NBA, pay their players well enough to last more than one lifetime. Women’s National Basketball Association, commonly known as the WNBA, players’ salaries is a different story.
The average salary for an NBA player is around $6.2 million. WNBA players get paid $72,000, on average. WNBA players are getting paid approximately 1.2 percent of what NBA players are getting paid. That’s only on average.
WNBA players are simply asking for more money coming from the profits of their games, which shouldn’t be too hard to ask considering they are the reason people are buying their products. For more information on the subject, check out David Berri’s article “WNBA Players Are Simply Asking For A Greater Share Of WNBA Revenue.”
Compare LeBron James’ salary of $31 million, the highest earning player in the NBA, to WNBA’s whopping $117,500. WNBA’s highest salary is only 0.4 percent of NBA’s highest salary, which is ridiculous.
Taking a look at the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) and the Ladies Professional Golfers Association (LPGA), the pay gap isn’t as alarming, but a change still needs to be made. The average pay of a PGA golfer was $973,000 as of 2014. LPGA golfers had an average pay of $162,000 in 2014.
The $811,000 difference in salary is a huge problem that needs to change. The measly 16.6 percent of PGA golfers salary is all a LPGA golfer earns.
What is truly unnerving about Major League Soccer (MLS) and the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) is the maximum salary for a woman soccer player is only 9.5 percent of a man’s average salary. A MLS player is earning roughly $316,777. A NWSL player is earning, at maximum salary, around $30,000 as of their 2014 season, according to Adelphi University’s article on the matter.
While some women practice and play circles around some men’s teams, they are not getting the fair pay they deserve. Paying players to mouth off and throw pity-parties is no way to earn money, unless you are a male and play a professional sport. Until the associations representing women’s programs step up and give the hardworking players what they truly deserve, a paycheck reflecting their passion for whatever sport they may be playing, spread the word in your community and inspire change.
