Sports: Is The Gender Pay Gap The Fault Of Sponsors?

The argument goes back and forth in sports for equal pay for male and female athletes. On one side we see men’s sports continuously setting new records year in and year out for annual contracts. On the other, their female counterparts seem to be making a fraction of their annual salaries to play the same sport. Take the NBA vs the WNBA. Of course, someone always chimes in with the annual revenue for each league and how if you go by percent of revenue, the pay scale isn’t that skewed. However, the average earnings of a female athlete pales in comparison.

The argument here is that if those leagues made more money, they’d be able to pay their athletes more. We have to ask why don’t those leagues make more money? Ask any beer-swigging sports enthusiast at a bar and you’ll get the response that male athletes are more talented and thus people will pay more to see them play. It’s an outdated opinion, but it’s pretty much the only argument they can make. When it comes to sports, female athletes aren’t celebrated nearly as much by sponsors as men. The celebrity status of the two aren’t even close in comparison.

It all comes down to marketability. Think all the way back to the days of Michael Jordan becoming king of the endorsement deal. He was making more money in endorsements than he was playing basketball. He wasn’t just an athlete, he was a brand. He retired almost 20 years ago in 2003, and last year his Jordan brand from Nike earned him a whopping $150 million.

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On the other hand, Serena Williams is still playing tennis and still playing at a very high level. She will go down as one of the all-time greatest to ever play her sport if not the greatest. Of the female athletes, she is arguably one of the most recognizable faces in her sport. She also has a deal with Nike, but it’s at a fraction of the cost. Her total earnings from the company are said to have reached up to $55 million dollars.

Imagine if you will a world where the endorsement deals for female athletes were pushed just as strong as the men. Why can’t they be treated with the same celebrity status as male athletes? The more face-time they have with the public, the more interest people gain in the sport, and the more they’d be willing to pay to see these females play. Why was Space Jam 2 a carbon copy of Michael Jordan’s classic and not a movie with Serena Williams as the star? These leagues could be making the same kind of money if they were marketed the same. People will pay if they feel they’re witnessing something great and it all starts with the marketing/sponsor push.