Gender-Based Prize Money Differences In Sport
October 28, 2014 1:46 AM   Subscribe

A BBC Sport study into prize money found 30% of sports reward men more highly than women. The biggest disparities in prize money were found in football, cricket, golf, darts, snooker and squash.

"A total of 56 global sports were looked at in the extensive study. Out of 35 sports that pay prize money, 25 pay equally and 10 do not. Fourteen sports, including rugby union and hockey, do not pay any prize money at all."
posted by marienbad (29 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
I don't know about the other sports, but I think women could be just as good as men in darts.

I've watched the recent footage and studied it for any possible weaknesses on the part of the female competitor, but I can't see any way that the woman is any worse or better than the man when it comes to throwing a pointy dart at a target.

Based on this, Hillary Clinton will be the next President of the United States.
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:54 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]


I don't know about the other sports, but I think women could be just as good as men in darts.

I don't understand why sports that don't rely on musculoskeletal strength are still segregated. Is there any good reason why men and women shouldn't compete against each other at darts or snooker?
posted by alby at 3:29 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]


I don't understand why sports that don't rely on musculoskeletal strength are still segregated. Is there any good reason why men and women shouldn't compete against each other at darts or snooker?


Popularity. Take 1000 men and 1000 women. If 10% of men play darts and 1% of women play darts, we end up with 100 men and 10 women. In each gender you will see a bell curve of abilities, so we are more likely to find that the best darts players are men simply because there are more men playing darts. If you don't segregate, and the darts final includes 10 people, you'd probably see 9 mean and 1 woman. In practice, the numbers could be even worse than this.

Of course, you can argue that if only mens darts gets coverage, then segregation has done more harm than good, as the next generation are going to see darts as a mans game and segregation would continue. If they hadn't been segregated, then that 1 woman out of 10 might have inspire more women to play in future.

Some of those disparities are kind of insane. Its, again, a bit of a vicious circle because as womens sports are less interesting to the viewing public they tend to earn less money, so have a smaller prize pool, and are less desirable to women, which means the talent pool is smaller, and so on... of course professional women in sports are likely to be excellent, so the choice to not watch them certainly has prejudice attached to it.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 3:36 AM on October 28, 2014 [9 favorites]


Reminds me of the minor outrage last year after the yearly Swedish football gala when a veteran member of the men's national team (current international rank 39) got a car by the football association for reaching 144 caps, while his counterpart in the women's team (rank 5) with 187 caps wasn't even mentioned...
posted by effbot at 3:44 AM on October 28, 2014


The average attendance at an English Premier League game is 36,631. The average attendance at an English Women's Super League game was 728 in 2014. The average cost of a season ticket for the WSL is £31.13. The average cost of the cheapest season ticket in the EPL was £329.59 in 2013. The WSL play 14 games a season, the EPL play 38 games a season. The TV rights for the EPL are worth £1bn annually. It is not clear what BT paid for the rights to the WSL but it seems unlikely to be high. All teams in the EPL get an annual pay out, increasing by around £1.2m per place at the end of the season, plus an equal share of TV revenue which came to £52m per team last season, plus a fee per televised game. So essentially there is a lot of money swilling around in the men's game, reflecting a significant market demand which is not present in the women's game. There are probably quite a lot of reasons underlying this but perhaps the most notable are the short history of the WSL and the relatively low number of female players.

Within this context it is an interesting question as to what significantly increasing the prize money in the WSL or other Women's football competition in the UK would be. Would it incentivise more women to play or would it be wiser to spend more money on trying to help the teams build up a player and fan base though other actions? The WSL it should be noted is one of the actions supported by the English FA to build the women's game. Should they get more money from the FA to do this? I would say yes, and other parts of the game should also be getting more from the big boy's trough too.
posted by biffa at 3:50 AM on October 28, 2014 [5 favorites]


Only 30%?
posted by gingerest at 4:02 AM on October 28, 2014 [6 favorites]


One really interesting element to this is that differences in speed and musculature mean that for some sports, the women's game is almost a completely different sport than the men's. What that means is that if you grow up learning to watch and be a fan of the men's game (or vice versa, although that rarely happens) and you want to become a fan of the other gender, you have to summit an unexpected learning curve in order to do so.

I've noticed it in rugby because I played that for many years myself. The women's game is slower, but that also means it's more strategic (people have more time to think ahead and plan things). It also means that more relies on teamwork and ball-handling skills and less on just throwing or kicking really far. A big difference is that even at the highest levels, women can't rely on kicking the ball across most of the field. That means that if your team is trapped in the back of the field in dangerous territory you have to use a different strategy than you would if you knew you could with high probability get it to the other side pretty easily. It also means that it's more problematic to be trapped in that area, with all kinds of knock-on effects: you do different things at kickoffs, you're more risk-averse at some times and more risk-seeking at others -- basically, it's just a different game in many subtle ways that add up to a pretty different fan experience.

Anyway, I could natter on about rugby all day, but my point is that this is one of those hidden considerations that means that getting and keeping more viewers across the gender divide is probably more complex than it seems like it would be. I think for most people the learning curve would be a negative, particularly if they weren't expecting it and just wanted to relax and watch a game.
posted by forza at 4:16 AM on October 28, 2014 [8 favorites]


Alby said, "I don't understand why sports that don't rely on musculoskeletal strength are still segregated. Is there any good reason why men and women shouldn't compete against each other at darts or snooker?"

From the article:

In snooker and darts, women are allowed to enter and compete alongside men at world championships, provided they qualify. However they do also run separate women's championships...
posted by daveliepmann at 4:29 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]


Things can change. The rise of Ronda Rousey in the UFC, and her amazing "ticket sale power" has proven that even heavily male orientated sports can gradually shift in attitude. The UFC, once a bastion of "male only" athletes has embraced this change, clearly evident with the "Ultimate Fighter 20" - an all female cast. The pay may not be anywhere near equal yet, but just getting women into mainstream MMA coverage is the first and most important step. Here's to the future of MMA - equality for all?
posted by greenhornet at 4:38 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]


One really interesting element to this is that differences in speed and musculature mean that for some sports, the women's game is almost a completely different sport than the men's. What that means is that if you grow up learning to watch and be a fan of the men's game (or vice versa, although that rarely happens) and you want to become a fan of the other gender, you have to summit an unexpected learning curve in order to do so.

This is a really good point, and the sport with which I've noticed it most myself is handball. Women's handball - great, exciting sport to watch. Men's handball - much more physical and less technical, much duller to watch.
posted by Dysk at 4:49 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]


You should see the way the NFL treats its cheerleaders.

For those of you outside the US, cheerleading is widely regarded in many parts of the US as a sport. In many states, girls get varsity letters from their school for cheerleading. And all across America, if there is a football team practicing, there is a cheerleading squad practicing nearby.

NFL team cheerleaders do as many fan events for the team as the players. The cheerleaders are often part of the face of the franchise. But NFL cheerleaders get paid less than the guy selling hotdogs at the Stadium. A billion dollar sport, with a deep connection to female athletes who are on the payroll of each team - and who are not even paid a living wage.
posted by Flood at 4:52 AM on October 28, 2014 [6 favorites]


Go ahead, keep justifying the money gap. It's still wrong.
posted by grounded at 5:25 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]


This is a really good point, and the sport with which I've noticed it most myself is handball. Women's handball - great, exciting sport to watch. Men's handball - much more physical and less technical, much duller to watch.

I feel the same way about tennis. Male tennis players simply serve too hard nowadays. The women's game is much more interesting to watch.
posted by nathancaswell at 5:38 AM on October 28, 2014


FWIW, NFL cheerleading is a part-time gig. I work with a lady who is one and she has a real full time job here with benefits a decent salary.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 6:06 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]


That's just one more reason to watch equestrian sports where the women and the men compete equally with each other. Depending on the year the best show jumper, dressage rider, or three-day eventer could be a man or a woman. And while the percentage of female jockeys is lower than male jockeys, there is nothing to say you won't see a woman in the winner's circle of the Derby or the Plate.
posted by sardonyx at 6:09 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]


This American Masters documentary about Billie Jean King is a fascinating look at the history of gender-based prize money discrepancies in tennis.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 6:23 AM on October 28, 2014


I was surprised that cycling didn't come off worse, but maybe that's because you can't make a comparison between the prize money of the men's and women's Tour de France, because there isn't currently a women's Tour. You could compare the Giro d'Italia with the Giro Rosa, which is not exactly equivalent but it's the biggest women's stage race of the year:
"The overall prize fund for the Giro d’Italia was nearly 1.3 million euros. Each stage win could net a rider 11,000 euros, and Nairo Quitana, who took the overall win at the Grand Tour race pocketed 200,000. The overall prize fund for the Giro Rosa was in the region of 17,600 euros. The overall grand classification winner, Marianne Vos – one of the most talented, skilled professional athletes of all time, male or female – took home 535 euros."
That article highlights some of the other linked issues facing women's road cycling, including sponsorship, a lack of races and race coverage, and the absence of a minimum wage for female cyclists, and there are steps towards equality like equal prize money at the world championships, the Tour of Britain, and in cyclocross races. But a world champion and Olympic medallist can still make more money from coming third in a triathlon than from winning professional cycling races.
posted by penguinliz at 6:28 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]


In the past few years there has been a rising call for gender parity in cycling, but from what I've noticed, it's a lot more effective at regional and national-level events. In the US, more and more of those events have equal prize lists. But they pale in comparison to the major international events, which as penguinliz points out, often have no women's field. This year, the Tour de France had a one-day women's race on the final day (it is 3 weeks of racing for men), which was seen by some as a great step, and seen by others as too little too late.

One of the big components is media exposure. There's a frustrating chicken-or-the-egg situation: promotors can't offer equal prize money because there are no sponsors offering more prize money for women; sponsors wouldn't do it because they're not guaranteed good exposure through media attention; women's races aren't covered sufficiently by the cycling news media because there's not enough interest or profile; and there's not enough interest because it's hard to find information and nothing is billed as high profile.

This is a particular challenge for cycling because there's so little revenue from fans. Watching a race is free - you just go to a road that it passes.

Obviously this can be overcome - it just requires commitment, investment, and patience.
posted by entropone at 6:44 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]


These pay gaps are unacceptable, but honestly I was surprised that sports weren't even more regressive.

Just don't tell the gamergaters, or they'll try to create a "sportsgamergate".
posted by happyroach at 6:56 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]


So where does the money come from to pay these athletes? Did anyone compare the prize money as a percentage of the revenues of each sport?

I mean, how could you pay a female player the equivalent of a male player, if the average salary in a men's league is more than the operating revenue for the entire women's league?

In other words, who is being unfair to these women - the sports associations/event organizers, or the audiences?
posted by GhostintheMachine at 7:10 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]


In other words, who is being unfair to these women - the sports associations/event organizers, or the audiences?

It's a systemic issue, of course. It's not like there is a cabal of sports organizers conspiring to keep women's prizes low. As entropone notes, society's ideas about women and sports result in fewer female athletes and less attendance which means less money which means lower prizes.

I think it's similar to women in science and engineering fields. People claim they'd hire more women programmers but there don't seem to be many. There don't seem to be many because women are discouraged from that path. Women are discouraged from that path because society feels it's not for them, and use the low number of women programmers as proof, and young women have fewer role models than men to follow.
posted by Sangermaine at 7:15 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]


This strikes me as one of those things where it's useful to know that there's data for something so patently obvious.
posted by dry white toast at 7:28 AM on October 28, 2014


Sangermaine: "As entropone notes, society's ideas about women and sports result in fewer female athletes and less attendance which means less money which means lower prizes."

I'd be sort-of curious to see data from ESPN on streaming of women's college basketball in the US now that it's largely available on-demand. It used to be women's basketball was almost impossible to watch, but now I know a lot of college basketball fans who never miss their alma mater's men's OR women's team and devotedly stream each game. I don't imagine there's parity, of course, but I'd be curious to see a sports/TV stats person slice and dice that data and show what kind of growth women's basketball got just from being available to watch. You have a natural fan base (in alumni of that particular college) and well-educated fans of the sport; I'm curious to know how much uptake a women's sport gets just from being easily available to watch.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:41 AM on October 28, 2014


I've had some discussions with (pretty much apolitical) basketball fans where they basically say that they think women's basketball is a fine sport but that ultimately the appeal of basketball is not strategy, or really even the game itself, they just want to watch huge people do things that seem like they should be impossible. Like, the competition and hard work and self-overcoming and all that is not an ends in itself, for them, they just want visceral athletic spectacle, and male athletes (basically by being strong and also uncannily fast) can usually do that better than female. I'm not sure these people quite understand their own motivations, because otherwise why isn't gymnastics the #1 sport, but I think this is a pretty common viewpoint with some truth to it; anytime the WNBA comes up people crack jokes about "good fundamentals".

I'm not a rugby fan but the description of women's rugby above seems to agree with this; also the idea that women's tennis is somewhat more tactical. To really enjoy women's sports it seems like a lot of the time you have to be a "student of the game"; it's harder to just zone out and watch the physical spectacle.

I don't think this explains the money gap, especially since even in sports where even the men don't leap around all that much (cycling, swimming, arguably baseball/softball?) the gap persists. It does make me think that really good, intelligent commentators could help people get into women's sports; that, or trying to build a fanbase of people who have played a sport semi-seriously and so understand it and don't need to be educated.
posted by vogon_poet at 8:21 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]


OK, let's put it another way. Why the focus on how much women are paid, when evening up the prizemoney wouldn't change the dynamic? The money paid isn't the problem, it's a symptom of the problem.

It seems in order to increase the number of role models, we need to increase the visibility of the ones we have. Approaching it from the wrong way around doesn't seem to be helpful.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 8:31 AM on October 28, 2014


I'd be sort-of curious to see data from ESPN on streaming of women's college basketball in the US now that it's largely available on-demand.

My awesome (retired) mother, who's always been primarily a fan of men's basketball, is watching basically all the sports our alma mater plays because of this. The other day she was telling me how much she was enjoying the women's volleyball games.

I assume she's not alone in taking advantage of the new constant availability of college sports programming, and I hope it leads to a better market for women's sports overall. Though maybe not volleyball. Did my mom forget that both her children got our arms broken that way?
posted by asperity at 9:06 AM on October 28, 2014


I think a lot of comments here are confusing a few things, which are slightly linked but not strongly linked. I personally would appreciate it if comments were clearer when they talk about a 'pay gap' exactly which components they're referring to. The below items, at least, are often quite distinct:
  1. Prize money - the subject of the study
  2. Broadcasting revenue, which is paid either to teams directly, or to associations / leagues to distribute
  3. Salaries paid to players
  4. Sponsorship revenues paid to players
  5. A player's total income
For some sports, like tennis, it's really just 1 and 4 that contribute to 5. But in soccer, it's more likely to be 3 and 4. And although the prize money gap is huge, prize money is not a huge part of a top club's revenue, so focusing on that is not necessarily that relevant: it actually under-estimates how big the difference is! 2 is a massive part of a European men's soccer club's revenue, and 3 is a large part of their expenditure.

I also think a lot of the differences people see between men's and women's version of the same sport are more of a difference between semi-pro / amateur and top-level professional, than anything innate. Sure, there are other differences, but the lack of time available to train, facilities, and coaching are all huge factors that often go ignored in comparing the 'spectacle'. Women's soccer and cricket, the two I'm most familiar with, are basically at the level of very good semi-professional men's teams, which is about what I'd expect. I'm excited to see what happens as they get more funding, because cricket in particular is very similar to rugby as mentioned above: more technical, fewer big hits, more reliance on the 'classical' tactics which have been chased away by professionalism in the men's game.

As a postscript, I'm strongly in favour of the respective boards and clubs funding the women's game with profits from the men's game, where a distinction exists. In cricket, for instance, the England and Wales Cricket Board - for all their faults in other areas - have made their women's team the first full-time professional women's cricket team.
posted by smcg at 9:23 AM on October 28, 2014


Hockey is a strange case. As far as I know, the IIHF doesn't award prize money in any of it's tournaments. I'm guessing that the zero figure because of the lack of a women's professional league anywhere.

However, there are women playing professional hockey. Haley Wickenheiser is now retired from professional play, but Shannon Szabados and Noora Räty are playing in the minor league systems in US and Finland respectively.
posted by cmfletcher at 9:45 AM on October 28, 2014


1.Prize money - the subject of the study
2.Broadcasting revenue, which is paid either to teams directly, or to associations / leagues to distribute
3.Salaries paid to players
4.Sponsorship revenues paid to players
5.A player's total income

For some sports, like tennis, it's really just 1 and 4 that contribute to 5. But in soccer, it's more likely to be 3 and 4.


It is a useful reminder about conflating prize and pay as you say. However, I disagree on your soccer analysis. The team at the top of the EPL made nearly £25m from their league place last year, which goes to the team largely, not the individual, and the team made a further £70m+ from broadcasting rights. This will contribute directly to them being able to buy new players and links directly to player income in that league.
posted by biffa at 10:08 AM on October 28, 2014


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