Equal Pay in Sports: Examining the Economic and Social Implications

This essay delves into the ongoing debate surrounding equal pay for female athletes, examining the economic and social factors that contribute to the issue. It begins by highlighting the arguments and perspectives of both male and female athletes, referencing instances where the pay gap has been a point of contention. The essay then presents a detailed comparison of the physical differences between male and female athletes, including muscle distribution, physiological variations, and injury risks, and how these differences can impact performance and effort. It also analyzes the revenue generation aspects, discussing ticket sales, sponsorships, and media coverage to address the common argument that women's sports generate less revenue. The essay concludes by advocating for equal pay, emphasizing the need for fairness and acknowledging the efforts and challenges faced by female athletes. The analysis incorporates real-world examples, such as the earnings disparity between top athletes like Lionel Messi and Ada Hegerberg, and the impact of sponsorship and media investment on revenue.

SHOULD FEMALE ATHLETES BE PAID THE SAME AS THE MALE ATHLETES

• It is an on-going debate for decades whether female athletes should be paid the same as men athletes. The question brings
up a lot of heat, glares, and emotions.
• In the past, a male tennis player named Novak Djokovic has claimed that male tennis players should be paid more as those
matches acquire way more viewers and audiences than women’s matches do (Bower, Hums & Grappendorf, 2015).
• It was right after Serena Williams publically made a statement about this issue and criticized the ‘Indian Wells’ Director
for the uneven pay. According to Djokovic, women wanted to participate in sports like men and they fought their way in it. But this is all
they deserve and they have got it.
• Now they cannot claim for more prize money. Rather he pointed out that men athletes should fight for higher prize money
as they bring in the most viewers (Spaaij, Farquharson & Marjoribanks, 2015).
• He also stated that men’s body does not go through so many changes as women’s body does, specifically in his words ‘the
hormones and different stuff’. Clearly, this was a sexist comment and it raised a lot of public outrage due to which he had to apologise
publically and retract his statement.

• The soccer team Matildas was the next in line in this argument. It is the Australian women’s soccer team.
• They also raised the same question and protested by skipping a game tour. It stirred up a lot of heat in the sports
industry.
• Afterward, Cricket Australia announced good news as they declared a new pay deal for women cricketers. The top
players in the female cricket team will be the highest-paid athletes in team sports in the country (O'Connor et al., 2017).
• Due to the new deal, the players will be earning more than 100,000 AUD per annum.
• Even after this, another thing was pointed out that a bunch of male cricketers from Australia who are in the highest
ranks is paid almost 2 million AUD in a season.

• Recently the FIFA women’s world cup news churned up the debate once again. Therefore, it seems like the right time to
present some facts and arguments on the topic.
• Even though the pay gap has been addressed before and governments have done their share of works to eliminate or at
least minimise the gap, but this gap does exist in sports even today (Fink, 2015).
• Recently, the USA football team declared a legal battle against it in their country and their only claim was equal pay as
their fellow male athletes.
• Ada Hegerberg is a footballer from Norway and she is the only woman till now who has won the well-known award of
Ballon d’Or (Hancock & Hums, 2016).
• Now she has gone in a strike because of the same claim and she has taken out her name from the FIFA world cup series.
Her reasons for protest also include the fact that Norway’s investment in women’s football and other women’s sports is significantly
low.

• Since sport is one of the professions that pay the highest and it is considered to be high-profile, the pay gap has to be
addressed.
• Besides, it is also one of the fields that represent the most inequality between these two genders year (Taylor & Hardin,
2016).
• To point out the significant gap, Hegerberg’s earning and one of the highest-ranking male footballers Lionel Messi’s
earning can be compared.
• Messi earns over 140 million USD per year whereas Hegerberg being the highest-paid athlete earns 431,337 USD per
year.
• So basically the gap between the two highest-paid athletes is 0.3%. Considering the Indian cricket teams, male cricket
team captain Virat Kohli earns 7 cr per annum while the female team captain Mithali Raj gets paid only 50 lakhs in a year (Bruce,
2016).

• The first fact that will be addressed here is whether female and male players are different in terms of physic and how
does it affect their performance and effort in sports. It is certain that both are physically different.
• The most difference lies in muscle distribution in their bodies. Males have more muscles in the upper half and
especially in the shoulder and neck regions (Sherwood, Osborne, Nicholson & Sherry, 2017). Females have fewer muscles in the same
regions and rather in the lower half. This distribution and the dissimilarity account for 30% of the difference seen in healthy human
beings.
• When this fact is implied in sports, the difference is easier to understand.
• To present as examples some world records can be compared. In Javelin with 100 m sprints, the recorded distance after
the athletes have thrown the Javelins shows that there is about 30% difference. Even counting the time the athletes took to sprint the
100 m, the difference is almost 10% (Mayer & Thiel, 2018).
• There are sports that require more upper body strength such as tennis, javelin, cricket, golf. And the players are
considerably less powerful compared to the male athletes in the same sports due to the upper body difference.

• Talking about golf, a male player has to use 60% of their maximum force and energy to play a golf ball for 200 m. but
in this same scenario, a woman player has to use at least 80% of her force.
• Therefore, it suffices to say those female athletes have to work harder than the males to accomplish the tasks in sports
as such.
• If we talk about the difference in physiology, some say that men’s hearts are larger than women’s although this fact is
contradicted and disconfirmed by otherscounterparts (Evetovich, Conley & McCawley, 2015).
• Men also have more volume in blood, more capacity in the lungs.
• They are usually taller than women as well as their bodies are generally larger (almost 10kg) mainly due to heavier
bone and muscles.

• Athletes work hard to narrow this gap as much as possible. But even then the efforts put by both genders in sports are
different. In any athletic task, women have to deliver more potential than their male counterparts.
• For instance, in a 100 m race within 11 seconds, females have to 100% of their potential while males can do it by using
90%. So their performances are different in terms of effort (Burrow, 2016).
• Swimming is an exception in which females generally outswim males due to their more body fat. It allows them to have
more buoyancy and that increases their efficiency. But overall the males have a physiological advantage in land-based sports.
• Basically, the misconception that women cannot perform at the same level as men or that they do not have what it takes
to do sports has generated from a bunch of men.
• Marathons did not allow any woman to participate as the men speculated that they are frail till 1972. But a woman
participated anyway and she finished the marathon before it was even legal. Society gives way less credit to women and their bodies
than what they can actually do (Hall & Oglesby, 2016).

• Now coming to injuries the athletes have to encounter, the statistics show that the shoulder and knee injuries suffered by
female athletes are way more than the males.
• The small and fewer muscles in the upper body cause shoulder injuries and females having a wider pelvis are the reason
behind so many knee injuries.
• Therefore, it is a fact that female athletes are subjected to more risks than males even when they are training.
• To be honest, they are subjected to even a minimal injury even for a small exposure.
• So, it does not need the genius to understand that their career can be over at any given moment. Injuries may impact a
female athlete’s earning in a season negatively (Sabo, Veliz & Staurowsky, 2016).

• Another interesting fact is there is also a difference in women's and men’s body temperature. During the menstrual cycle,
the core body temperature differs up to 1 degree Celsius. In that phase, female athletes’ physiology is bound to get more stressed
especially in the heat. Males do not encounter these fluctuations (Cooky, Messner & Musto, 2015).
• Another fact is that whiplash injury is more visible for females than men when they get into car accidents. If we address
and take into account the amount the athletes travel to go for training, and matches, the female athletes have 200% more risk.
• Even if a minor accident occurs and a female’s neck gets injured, this injury will cost her more than the males.
• Now we must talk about another statement or argument that gets thrown in women’s faces when they raise this issue.
• As a lot of people say, women’s sports games do not generate as much revenue as men’s games do. One question that
comes along with this statement is whether women actually understand the concept of Return On Investment or ROI (Fink, LaVoi &
Newhall, 2016).

• Talking about revenue, it does not come from one source in this case. It includes a lot of other things such as selling
tickets, getting advertisements, selling sports merchandise, etc (Kane, 2016).
• But these sources are vastly overlooked by one question that how many viewers are watching the game on the
television.
• There is another doubt in this matter whether the number of fans watching the game has any impact on the number
of sales it makes from other sources and whether it can surpass the other sources in terms of revenue. Basically, this is the concept
of ROI.
• Since men are playing sports from the beginning and it is considered to be something only for men, the fandom of
women sports was built centuries later (Johansson & Larsson, 2017).
• Many still consider that it is not an appropriate field for women. Thus, the fandom and the viewers who can be
comfortable watching the games are less.

• But there is another fact. The sponsors who invest money in these games are hesitant to take risks by investing as much
as they do in men’s sports. So the revenue is bound to be less.
• Recently, Nike took that risk by investing a major amount in the women’s world cup.
• The company is spending more on advertising the game and the merchandise (Hall, 2016).
• As a result, the women’s football team jerseys are the best selling items on their website. So, it was not a risk after all.
• Looking at all the facts, women athletes should be paid as much as the male ones. It is about that we fix the games and
make it fair for everyone. In fact, they work harder than males if it requires so. So it should do justice to their efforts (Andersen &
Loland, 2017).

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