Are women in sports still paid less than men?

Although the issue had already been discussed a lot, it still provokes many reactions of athletes around the world. With different explanations of experts, many of them agree that women should earn equal pay as men, but this is still not the case.

Some sports have made a big step forward in this regard, and enabled women equal pay, but why is it then that in some sports this seems like a mission impossible!?

Last year, Novak Đoković, a Serbian professional tennis player who is currently ranked #2 in the world said:

„Women deserved the money they got, but men should be rewarded with more because their game attracted more viewers.“

Ok, that’s true. It’s obvious that sport became a business and who ones that generate more money will recieve more as a reward, but how can women offer more interesting and spectacular sport performances if they don’t have the same conditions as men in so many sports?

Either way (and fortunately), 25 sports pay the same amount for both sexes, and I hope that in future the number will grew.

You can take a closer look at the BBC survey from 2014 to see which sports pay the same amount of prize money to men and women, as well as the bigg differences in payouts in some sports.

If we compare disparity in prize money, we’ll see that the biggest differences can be found in football, cricket, golf, cliff diving, darts, snooker, squash, surfing, and ski jumping.

Besides, take a look at a list of the highest paid athletes in the world, and you’ll see how you have to scroll down to #40 on the list to stumble upon the first woman on the list, in this case Serena Williams, and 48 spots below her (at #88) is the second woman, Maria Sharapova. They are the only two women to crack the top 100 this year for the second straight year. Disappointing!? Absolutely!!! You can find the entire Forbes list here.

Conclusion

Considering all the above, we can conclude that women, in some sports, are still paid less than their male counterparts, but things are slowly changing in favor of women. However, it still remains to be seen if women will ever fully stand alongside man when it comes to sports salaries and endorsements.