Title IX was institutionalized in 1972 giving rights to all female athletes, allowing them to participate in all levels of a sport, from high school to professional, and earn a salary adequate for their work. Although Title IX has given women a ground to be equal to men’s athletics, their climb to equality has been a steep one. Since 1972, Male athletes have dominated all forms of media and funding. Only 2-4% of all college sports coverage is focused on female sports, with a steady decline in recent years. Men’s college sports also receive far more funding than women, Men’s coaches are paid vastly more than women’s coaches, and there is a difference of over 60,000 opportunities between men and women athletes in college. Once you get to the professional level it is a similar story. The first pick in the NBA draft commonly makes around $5 million as their signing bonus on top of a large contract. Comparing this to the WNBA, a woman will make around $40-50,000 for theirs. Attendance rates are also significantly lower in the WNBA than in the NBA where an average of 18,000 people come to watch the men compared to the 7,000 who attend the WNBA games.<\/span><\/p>\n Currently, the NBA shares a much larger portion of its revenue with its players. The NBA generates $7.4 Billion annually, giving an average of $3.6 billion to all players combined while the WNBA generated $60 million, it only distributed $12 million to their players. There should be a policy that ensures that the NBA and WNBA pay out the same percentage of the league’s respective revenue, to its players. The NBA has such a policy, they must give 53% of the league’s revenue to their players.<\/span><\/p>\n The consequences of the WNBA\u2019s resistance to raising salaries could cause the players to leave the league. The players have demanded pay proportionate to the WNBA for many years now and with little to no change they could possibly cause a lockout similar to the NBA\u2019s a few year ago. If they don\u2019t continue to be proactive in increasing the player\u2019s pay, the image of the league that has been so positive since it has been founded could be diminished.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As basketball fans and people who stand for equality in sports, the controversy over the WNBA\u2019s problem with its salary is an ongoing issue that frustrates many players and fans. This is an issue that must be solved in the future and must continue to be publicized to the public as so. Personally, this issue also impacts our lives, because we have sisters and other family members that take sports like basketball very seriously. We recognize how much hard work female athletes put into their sports and undoubtedly believe that they should be rewarded on the same basis as male athletes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The most interesting fact that was found while researching this topic was the amount of exposure that women’s sports receive from television carriers. Channels like ESPN and NBS Sports only show women professional and college sports around 3% of the time. Watching sports my whole life I never thought about the amount that women\u2019s sports were on television, after learning that women were only being shown 2% of the time, I would have thought that the big carriers would be proactive in growing their sports but I was wrong; they continue to be part of the problem.<\/span><\/p>\n How is it possible in today’s society to obtain an equal distribution of revenue between both the NBA and WNBA?<\/span><\/p>\n How can the NBA help publicize the WNBA through social media in order to provide another source of revenue?<\/span><\/p>\n What do women need to do in order to receive higher pay in the WNBA?<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sources\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cronin, M. (1970, January 1). <\/span>Filling the stands factors determining NBA and WNBA attendance<\/span><\/i>. Institutional Scholarship Home. Retrieved November 21, 2022, from https:\/\/scholarship.tricolib.brynmawr.edu\/handle\/10066\/6952\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0DeBord, R. (2017). <\/span>The representation of women and gender in Warner … – augustana college<\/span><\/i>. digital commons. Retrieved October 19, 2022, from <\/span>https:\/\/digitalcommons.augustana.edu\/cgi\/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=wollstonecraftaward<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Ettienne, lerae. (2019). <\/span>It’s Time to Pay Up, The Justification for Higher Salaries for WNBA Players: An Analysis of the WNBA’s Success and Employing Mediation between the WNBA and NBA to Leverage Future Success<\/span><\/i>. Hein Online. Retrieved 2022, from <\/span>https:\/\/heinonline.org\/HOL\/Page?public=true&handle=hein.journals\/pepds19&div=13&start_page=175&collection=journals&set_as_cursor=0&men_tab=srchresults#:~:text=Success%20and%20Employing-,Mediation,-between%20the%20WNBA\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Feldman, Torrey M. “Bet You Didn’t Know She Could Get Paid for That: Using Sports Betting and the Right of Publicity to Address the Gender Wage Gap in Professional Sports.” <\/span>UCLA Women’s LJ<\/span><\/i> 27 (2020): 249.<\/span><\/p>\n Kosofsky, Syda. “Toward gender equality in professional sports.” <\/span>Hastings Women’s LJ<\/span><\/i> 4 (1993): 209.<\/span><\/p>\n Leano, Aileen. “The Inequality in Female Professional Sports.” (2020). <\/span>Unpublished Manuscript<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Runcie, David Streeter. “The Gender Wage Gap in Sports: Explaining the Pay Gap in Sports.” (2019) <\/span>Unpublished Manuscript<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/economicsofgender\/files\/2022\/11\/Screen-Shot-2022-12-07-at-4.32.17-PM-2-300x186.png\")
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