Julian Ancheta
Andrea Banks
ENG102
July 9, 2016
Payment Disparity in Sports Rough Draft
It is a well known fact that male athletes get paid more than their female counterparts. You make ask yourself. "How can that be, when they play the same sport?" Well this where many people learn first hand that professional sports are, above all else, a business. That is right the sports you love to watch on TV are just as much of a business as any other company, with tons of more money. Would you believe me if I said that you were one of the main reasons for this payment disparity? Believe it or not, female athletes get paid way less because of the amount of revenue they are bringing in, or lack thereof.
Before we go on to explain revenue and what can be done to get more revenue flowing towards female athletics. Let us first talk about some sheer numbers that will make you realize how bad of a problem it is. Everyone remembers the last female World Cup; I would hope so because our country won the tournament. It was our first World Cup trophy that we won since 1999. The total prize pool of the tournament was $15 million, while the USA got about $2 million of that for winning the tournament. That number might make you think that the women's game is getting up there in popularity.
That is until you look at what the prize pool for the men's tournament was. The total amount for the prize pool of the 2014 Men's World Cup was $576 million. That is right there is no misprint on that number. The Men's prize pool was about 40 times the amount of the Women's prize pool. Sure, the US women's national team had more percentage of the revenue earned by sponsors than the German men's national team (Men's tournament champions), but the numbers are so astronomically different that the women's team got paid way less.
There was a reason for this though. The reason being that the sponsor revenue was the main factor that determines the prize pool. The men's tournament had about $529 million in sponsor revenue, compared to the women's $17 million (Ferro, 2015). That's not the only sport that men and women both have professional leagues in either. Take Diana Taurasi for instance, she is the WNBA's highest paid player, she made about just a little over $107,000. The minimum for an NBA player is about four times that amount. Most of the highest paid players make about 20-25 million.
This all leads back to the theme of the day, revenue. Revenue is the end all, be all of any business. This especially goes back to the way professional sports have a pay disparity between the sexes. Revenue is money that comes in to the league, based on sales of products or sponsorships. In most sports there is a shared revenue policy which makes every team have the same amount of money that they can pay to their players. Unfortunately, the women's amount is a lot less than the men's amount.
Now before there is any confusion on why revenue, and how much a player is economically valuable, determines how much they get paid, realize that not all sports are similar. An NFL player is definitely going to make more than a professional table tennis player. That is due to the fact that the sponsors for an NFL game are willing to pay more than they are for a table tennis game. This comes from numbers of viewers that there are for a specific type of entertainment. Look at the amount of money that companies will pay the NFL for a little 30 second commercial on the Super Bowl.
Hopefully you have kept up with me this long, because the rest will make sense. Remember how I told you that the more economically valuable a player is, the more he will get paid. Well think of it like this, there is a superstar, who millions of fans watch games for, and there is a role player, who will maybe get a couple of people watching. Guess who is going to get paid more, if you answered the superstar, then congratulations you have passed the common sense test.
Economic value is also important in the amount of players each team can have. The NBA, for instance has the highest average salary for any North American professional sport. The reason is there are at most 15 players on each roster and about $84 million dollars that each team needs to spend on all of those players. This rise in amount of dollars to each sport is due to a couple reasons that all have to do with revenue, but TV rights is the major one.
In order to be on TV, some network is going to have to give you a contract. It happens with shows, actors, and professional sports leagues. Depending on how your ratings are, and if they can go up from there, will determine your contract numbers. Men's leagues like the NBA, NFL, and MLB have the highest TV rights contracts because they are the most viewed. These contracts determine how much each league will get as a revenue sharing, which will go towards annual salaries. This also reveals the salary cap that each team must not go over when paying their players.
The only league in North America that I know of, who does not have a salary cap is the MLB. This is also the reason why the best MLB teams seem to be the ones in the best markets. The highest professional sports contracts come from the MLB because of this reason as well. Revenue and endorsements are also some of the biggest numbers for the best players obviously. The reason the MLB does not have the highest average salary is because there are so many minor league players who get paid $40,000 that it balances out the big contracts.
Now that we got all of the stats out of the way, let us look at how a different type of revenue impacts the little things. The fans are the biggest part of any sport. If you do not have many fans, then you are going to have less money. That is precisely what happens to women's sports when it comes to fans and viewership. Sure there may have been more fans that watched the Women's world cup final in English, than the Men's final also in English.
However, the biggest difference is supporting the sport year round. The NFL's Super Bowl is consistently rated as the most watched thing on TV when it is on. This is due to the popularity that it has with not only casual fans, who will only watch the big game, but also with the hardcore fans, who will watch it whenever it is on. Women's soccer may have a lot of casual fans who will only watch the big games, but it has very few supporters who follow it daily. That is where Men's soccer has the advantage, due to more fans watching year round.
With less fans watching the daily game, the women's game has less sponsors. Sponsors are the biggest part of day to day revenue, along with ticket sales. Sponsors pop up on all of the team's equipment, and they also pop up in advertising. Most of the professional sports leagues have their own set of sponsors for the jerseys, balls, and even as advertisement. However, because of the popularity of some sports, not all of the sports receive the same type of quality of sponsorships.
When you look at the NFL, NBA and the other major sports, you will see a lot of Nike. Now athletes are sponsored by different companies than the teams and leagues. That is why you will see many NBA athletes have different types of shoes. Endorsement deals also go hand in hand with an athlete's salary, because it is a different income than the salary. Some of the biggest superstars in the NBA will have their own shoes, that also go towards their income. Unfortunately, female athletes do not have the same type of name recognition that the male athletes do.
When the companies are looking for someone to sign up for an endorsement deal, they mostly look at future stars. That is where their bread and butter is. Most of the star athletes are signed by the time their name gets called in the draft, to multimillion dollar deals. That is how Nike got the credibility it has, because they took a shot on this kid from North Carolina named Michael Jordan. Most of the money makers come from the NBA, because they are the ones who can sell the most products.
The reason for that is the men's league seems to be more competitive than the female league. Unfortunately, they view the men's league on a pedestal up above the female league, because of the stars associated with the game. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of talented women in the game, but they are not as well known as the men. This recognition may be because the women's game is fairly newer compared to the men's.
The WNBA was a spin off of the NBA. Why do you think they called it the WNBA in the first place? This problem will just solve itself over time, with more people thinking that it is a legit sport up there with the men. In fact, there was even a debate if there could ever be a woman to play in the NBA. Well, the NBA is considered a more physical league just because of the physical strength advantage of a man compared to a woman. It is in the DNA of a man, that gives us the advantage.
With the topic of name recognition, comes the one thing people need everyday, clothing. More importantly we are talking about sports jerseys. When was the last time you saw an NBA jersey out there? How about an NFL jersey? Now I want you to think back to last time you saw a WNBA jersey. Now tell me, which one you are more likely to see out there being worn on a day to day basis.
It is more common to see a man's jersey than a female's jersey. That is due to the fact that more people are willing to pay for that new LeBron James jersey than they are for a Diana Taurasi jersey. This may be due to the media market they play in, but remember LeBron plays in Cleveland. Remember how I said companies are putting their likenesses on jerseys, well most of the money spent on jerseys goes to those companies.
Those companies pay a lot, especially in soccer, to have their logos posted on the jerseys. All of that money eventually gets circulated around back to the players through salary and endorsement deals. In sports, money talks and in the business of sports it is tough to judge the good players and the great players. There is a solution to this problem of payment disparity of the sexes in sports.
There are a number of mini solutions that would make the scale tip one way towards the other. These ways include going to by tickets for the games. Not only would the players appreciate it, but if we get enough then the sponsors will flock over to the women's game. This would lead to new sponsors taking interest, and there would be more females advertising a product. This could lead to many small girls wanting to play the same games as guys do without getting made fun of.
Another way to support the women's game is buying more jerseys. It is possible, because we have seen in our own country what women can do. If we start wearing jerseys, then that will become the new norm. Others will see you and think how cool that new jersey looks. This will lead them to googling the player's name and they will see that it is a female and not a male. More of this will lead to more name recognition for great female athletes. Maybe the new generation of athletes can be a healthy mix of both sexes.
When name recognition goes up then the viewership of TV games will also go up. This is your responsibility, because we need support year round and not just for the big games. The increase in viewership will lead to higher TV contracts, which will then lead to higher salary caps. By this point, women will be getting paid more because owners will have no other choice. Higher ratings lead to more companies that are willing to promote their product. More companies lead to the higher price each company has to pay. Guess where that money goes for the most part.
Lastly, this goes for big companies and their owners, they can go and support the new wave of women. This will lead to more industry leaders to gravitate more towards women and will give the women more respect in the locker room. Of course, these changes will lead to more positive changes in society. More people will be watching women play and the jerseys will sell more. These jerseys will get the news out about how women are taking over the sports and earning their rightful place.
In conclusion I just wanted to state that while I am a firm believer of equal rights. I do realize that there is a valid, economic reason to why women get paid less than men. It all has to do with revenue, just like every other business. We can change that fact by actually going out and supporting these very talented women. Let's make there be no reason towards the payment disparity. The choice is on you whether you want to support them or not. The question now is: Will you?
Andrea Banks
ENG102
July 9, 2016
Payment Disparity in Sports Rough Draft
It is a well known fact that male athletes get paid more than their female counterparts. You make ask yourself. "How can that be, when they play the same sport?" Well this where many people learn first hand that professional sports are, above all else, a business. That is right the sports you love to watch on TV are just as much of a business as any other company, with tons of more money. Would you believe me if I said that you were one of the main reasons for this payment disparity? Believe it or not, female athletes get paid way less because of the amount of revenue they are bringing in, or lack thereof.
Before we go on to explain revenue and what can be done to get more revenue flowing towards female athletics. Let us first talk about some sheer numbers that will make you realize how bad of a problem it is. Everyone remembers the last female World Cup; I would hope so because our country won the tournament. It was our first World Cup trophy that we won since 1999. The total prize pool of the tournament was $15 million, while the USA got about $2 million of that for winning the tournament. That number might make you think that the women's game is getting up there in popularity.
That is until you look at what the prize pool for the men's tournament was. The total amount for the prize pool of the 2014 Men's World Cup was $576 million. That is right there is no misprint on that number. The Men's prize pool was about 40 times the amount of the Women's prize pool. Sure, the US women's national team had more percentage of the revenue earned by sponsors than the German men's national team (Men's tournament champions), but the numbers are so astronomically different that the women's team got paid way less.
There was a reason for this though. The reason being that the sponsor revenue was the main factor that determines the prize pool. The men's tournament had about $529 million in sponsor revenue, compared to the women's $17 million (Ferro, 2015). That's not the only sport that men and women both have professional leagues in either. Take Diana Taurasi for instance, she is the WNBA's highest paid player, she made about just a little over $107,000. The minimum for an NBA player is about four times that amount. Most of the highest paid players make about 20-25 million.
This all leads back to the theme of the day, revenue. Revenue is the end all, be all of any business. This especially goes back to the way professional sports have a pay disparity between the sexes. Revenue is money that comes in to the league, based on sales of products or sponsorships. In most sports there is a shared revenue policy which makes every team have the same amount of money that they can pay to their players. Unfortunately, the women's amount is a lot less than the men's amount.
Now before there is any confusion on why revenue, and how much a player is economically valuable, determines how much they get paid, realize that not all sports are similar. An NFL player is definitely going to make more than a professional table tennis player. That is due to the fact that the sponsors for an NFL game are willing to pay more than they are for a table tennis game. This comes from numbers of viewers that there are for a specific type of entertainment. Look at the amount of money that companies will pay the NFL for a little 30 second commercial on the Super Bowl.
Hopefully you have kept up with me this long, because the rest will make sense. Remember how I told you that the more economically valuable a player is, the more he will get paid. Well think of it like this, there is a superstar, who millions of fans watch games for, and there is a role player, who will maybe get a couple of people watching. Guess who is going to get paid more, if you answered the superstar, then congratulations you have passed the common sense test.
Economic value is also important in the amount of players each team can have. The NBA, for instance has the highest average salary for any North American professional sport. The reason is there are at most 15 players on each roster and about $84 million dollars that each team needs to spend on all of those players. This rise in amount of dollars to each sport is due to a couple reasons that all have to do with revenue, but TV rights is the major one.
In order to be on TV, some network is going to have to give you a contract. It happens with shows, actors, and professional sports leagues. Depending on how your ratings are, and if they can go up from there, will determine your contract numbers. Men's leagues like the NBA, NFL, and MLB have the highest TV rights contracts because they are the most viewed. These contracts determine how much each league will get as a revenue sharing, which will go towards annual salaries. This also reveals the salary cap that each team must not go over when paying their players.
The only league in North America that I know of, who does not have a salary cap is the MLB. This is also the reason why the best MLB teams seem to be the ones in the best markets. The highest professional sports contracts come from the MLB because of this reason as well. Revenue and endorsements are also some of the biggest numbers for the best players obviously. The reason the MLB does not have the highest average salary is because there are so many minor league players who get paid $40,000 that it balances out the big contracts.
Now that we got all of the stats out of the way, let us look at how a different type of revenue impacts the little things. The fans are the biggest part of any sport. If you do not have many fans, then you are going to have less money. That is precisely what happens to women's sports when it comes to fans and viewership. Sure there may have been more fans that watched the Women's world cup final in English, than the Men's final also in English.
However, the biggest difference is supporting the sport year round. The NFL's Super Bowl is consistently rated as the most watched thing on TV when it is on. This is due to the popularity that it has with not only casual fans, who will only watch the big game, but also with the hardcore fans, who will watch it whenever it is on. Women's soccer may have a lot of casual fans who will only watch the big games, but it has very few supporters who follow it daily. That is where Men's soccer has the advantage, due to more fans watching year round.
With less fans watching the daily game, the women's game has less sponsors. Sponsors are the biggest part of day to day revenue, along with ticket sales. Sponsors pop up on all of the team's equipment, and they also pop up in advertising. Most of the professional sports leagues have their own set of sponsors for the jerseys, balls, and even as advertisement. However, because of the popularity of some sports, not all of the sports receive the same type of quality of sponsorships.
When you look at the NFL, NBA and the other major sports, you will see a lot of Nike. Now athletes are sponsored by different companies than the teams and leagues. That is why you will see many NBA athletes have different types of shoes. Endorsement deals also go hand in hand with an athlete's salary, because it is a different income than the salary. Some of the biggest superstars in the NBA will have their own shoes, that also go towards their income. Unfortunately, female athletes do not have the same type of name recognition that the male athletes do.
When the companies are looking for someone to sign up for an endorsement deal, they mostly look at future stars. That is where their bread and butter is. Most of the star athletes are signed by the time their name gets called in the draft, to multimillion dollar deals. That is how Nike got the credibility it has, because they took a shot on this kid from North Carolina named Michael Jordan. Most of the money makers come from the NBA, because they are the ones who can sell the most products.
The reason for that is the men's league seems to be more competitive than the female league. Unfortunately, they view the men's league on a pedestal up above the female league, because of the stars associated with the game. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of talented women in the game, but they are not as well known as the men. This recognition may be because the women's game is fairly newer compared to the men's.
The WNBA was a spin off of the NBA. Why do you think they called it the WNBA in the first place? This problem will just solve itself over time, with more people thinking that it is a legit sport up there with the men. In fact, there was even a debate if there could ever be a woman to play in the NBA. Well, the NBA is considered a more physical league just because of the physical strength advantage of a man compared to a woman. It is in the DNA of a man, that gives us the advantage.
With the topic of name recognition, comes the one thing people need everyday, clothing. More importantly we are talking about sports jerseys. When was the last time you saw an NBA jersey out there? How about an NFL jersey? Now I want you to think back to last time you saw a WNBA jersey. Now tell me, which one you are more likely to see out there being worn on a day to day basis.
It is more common to see a man's jersey than a female's jersey. That is due to the fact that more people are willing to pay for that new LeBron James jersey than they are for a Diana Taurasi jersey. This may be due to the media market they play in, but remember LeBron plays in Cleveland. Remember how I said companies are putting their likenesses on jerseys, well most of the money spent on jerseys goes to those companies.
Those companies pay a lot, especially in soccer, to have their logos posted on the jerseys. All of that money eventually gets circulated around back to the players through salary and endorsement deals. In sports, money talks and in the business of sports it is tough to judge the good players and the great players. There is a solution to this problem of payment disparity of the sexes in sports.
There are a number of mini solutions that would make the scale tip one way towards the other. These ways include going to by tickets for the games. Not only would the players appreciate it, but if we get enough then the sponsors will flock over to the women's game. This would lead to new sponsors taking interest, and there would be more females advertising a product. This could lead to many small girls wanting to play the same games as guys do without getting made fun of.
Another way to support the women's game is buying more jerseys. It is possible, because we have seen in our own country what women can do. If we start wearing jerseys, then that will become the new norm. Others will see you and think how cool that new jersey looks. This will lead them to googling the player's name and they will see that it is a female and not a male. More of this will lead to more name recognition for great female athletes. Maybe the new generation of athletes can be a healthy mix of both sexes.
When name recognition goes up then the viewership of TV games will also go up. This is your responsibility, because we need support year round and not just for the big games. The increase in viewership will lead to higher TV contracts, which will then lead to higher salary caps. By this point, women will be getting paid more because owners will have no other choice. Higher ratings lead to more companies that are willing to promote their product. More companies lead to the higher price each company has to pay. Guess where that money goes for the most part.
Lastly, this goes for big companies and their owners, they can go and support the new wave of women. This will lead to more industry leaders to gravitate more towards women and will give the women more respect in the locker room. Of course, these changes will lead to more positive changes in society. More people will be watching women play and the jerseys will sell more. These jerseys will get the news out about how women are taking over the sports and earning their rightful place.
In conclusion I just wanted to state that while I am a firm believer of equal rights. I do realize that there is a valid, economic reason to why women get paid less than men. It all has to do with revenue, just like every other business. We can change that fact by actually going out and supporting these very talented women. Let's make there be no reason towards the payment disparity. The choice is on you whether you want to support them or not. The question now is: Will you?