Male athletes in basketball, golf, soccer, baseball, and tennis make anywhere from 15% to 100% more than female athletes. This causes no equal pay. There are many instances of pay becoming equal in sports, and some aren’t. 

The biggest instance of people fighting for equal pay in sports is with the United States Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNST) winning the world cup in 2019 started to draw all eyes to a lawsuit filed in 2016. 

This was a good move on their part due to the fact that according to the lawsuit, the women received $1.725 million for winning the 2015 event. Meanwhile, the men got $5.375 million for just reaching round 16 in 2014. They filed against U.S. Soccer Federation due to doing better but getting paid less than the men.

This could be due to a number of reasons, the first being the prize pool. The women’s prize pool was 30 million and increased to 60 million while the men’s was 400 million and increased to 440 million. 

The contract for the men’s and women’s teams is also different for the female players. The U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) collectively bargained for pay-for-play. While the USWNT collective bargaining agreement includes guaranteed salaries and benefits. 

Women get a guarantee of $100,000 if they lose all 20 games even if injured and they did play, meanwhile the men would also get $100,000 if they lost all 20 games but got no pay if injured.

On May 18, 2022, The United States Soccer Federation (including both the men’s and women’s teams), had a collective bargaining agreement. It achieved equal pay and set the standard for international soccer.

 On the other hand, the NBA and WNBA have a large pay gap with the highest-paid player Jewell Loyd earning $228,094 while the minimum wage for the NBA is $838,464. The difference between the USWNT and WNBA is that the WNBA doesn’t have a prize pool.

The WNBA and NBA are both paid based on how many eyes they bring to the sport. The average attendance for the NBA is 18,000 while the WNBA is 6,768.

The NBA also has a greater total number of games 1230 games during the regular season. A max of 105 playoff games if each series goes to 7 games. While the WNBA has 204 games and a max of 35 games in the postseason with a best of 5. 

In 2017 the NBA’s 30 teams generated 7.4 billion dollars and from a 1983 agreement to cap payrolls, players get a guarantee of at least 53% of league revenue. The WNBA generates approximately 60 million dollars and 12.3 million goes to the 151 players that make up 12 teams.

WNBA players can’t expect to be paid as much as NBA players because they play fewer regular-season games and don’t generate as much money. If they get more eyes on them whether it’s media coverage or ticket sales, they need more revenue to get paid more.

A study by Adelphi University published in 2021 that The average salary of a Major League Baseball player was $4 million, compared with $6,000 for those with Women’s Professional Fastpitch. Male tennis players made an average of $335,946 last year while women earned $283,635.  Male golfers averaged $1.25 million versus $48,993 for their female counterparts.

The gender pay gap in sports has been an issue, but getting more eyes on the Women’s side of sports will bring the pay up because it’s all about how much you bring in.