What a women's sweat is worth

I was reading a UK cycling magazine named 'Cycling Plus", the September issue, and low and behold there was an article on page 14 that draws attention to the disparity in salaries of womens cycling. This is not a new theme and lately I'm finding this on velo blogs, online magazines as well as their printed equals. But if you did a little deeper you find that it's not just womens cycling but that womens sport on a whole that doesn't  pay anything compared to men and sometimes it just doesn't pay anything at all.

To be start with I know that the pro's in womens sports are no holds bared, don't hold back and always press on adrenaline junkies...just like their male counterparts. These fine athletes are very perfection oriented, quality driven and honed razor sharp...again just like the pro men. So why is the pay off for these pro women so small?

Sue Bird, a member of the Seattle Storm in the WNBA, has been called a poster child for women’s athletics. Unfortunately for her, that fame hasn’t exactly translated into tremendous riches. At the beginning of her maiden year in the hoops league, she made just $57,500. Eventually, her salary increased, but not above $87,000, which, according to InsideHoops.com, was the maximum pay in the WNBA. She and her teammates received a $10,000 bonus for winning the league title in 2004.

Compare the salaries of Bird and her fellow WNBA stars to those in the NBA and you’ll see the gender gap is as big as the Grand Canyon. According to the Women’s Sports Foundation, the average NBA salary rose to $3.17 million per player in the 1999-2000 season, while the average WNBA salary was about $55,000. That means the men made almost 60 times more than the women. A few WNBA players earn more than $100,000 a year, but that is only because they have side jobs, such as playing in other leagues or helping with WNBA marketing efforts. As reported Aug 27 2009 @ Askmen.com, Steve Seppersud

Gender Inequity in Professional Sports
Despite the French Open's announcement this year to offer equal prize money to both male and female champions, other female French Open competitors will still be paid considerably less than their male counterparts.

• While ESPN is commended for tripling the women's purse for Summer X 12, purses are still not equal and women competitors are significantly underrepresented in both the Summer and Winter X Games, making up only 931% of the total athletes in the Winter 2007 X Games and only 9% of the Summer 2006 X Games.
  
• Total prize money for the PGA tour, $256 million, is more than five times that of the LPGA tour, $50 million. Similar discrepancies exist throughout professional sports.
  
• For a WNBA player in the 2005 season, the minimum salary was $31,200, the maximum salary was $89,000, and the team salary cap was $673,000. For NBA players in the 2004-2005 season, the minimum salary was $385,277, the maximum salary was $15.355 million, and the team salary cap was $46 million.
  
• For finishing in third place in the 2003 Women's World Cup, each U.S. women's national soccer team member was awarded $25,000. They would have received $58,000 if they had won the Cup. For reaching the quarterfinal of the World Cup in 2002, the U.S. men's national soccer team members received $200,000 each.
  
• In 2000, the average salary for vice presidents at sports corporate sponsors was 70% higher for men than for women ($141,250 vs. $83,067). The industry's overall average base salary for women was $58,407 vs. $88,796 for men. In 2002 the overall sponsorship industry, which includes sports sponsorship, still showed a large disparity between male and female salaries. Take-home pay for males averaged $108,350 versus $71,123 for females, a 52% differential. Also, 32% of men earned a commission, compared with 12% of women. As quoted from the Womens Sports Foundation 2008, http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/Content/Articles/Issues/Equity-Issues/P/Pay-Inequity-in-Athletics.aspx

 Giving this subject matter a lot of thought and reading many articles in print and on the web I realized one thing and one thing only. It should be self evident and is not attached to the quality, pride, suffering and professionalism of these women athletes..do you know what the difference is? Il post a few comments first that I found on the web:
Dumb says:
There are too many women posts complaining about the salary differences. If you want women to make more money, then reach into your pockets and buy tickets and merchandise. Don't come to sites like this and complain about it. The biggest flaw to most women's sports is the majority of women don't watch it. I'm not saying that women's sports shouldn't be allowed but they should not make the same $$ or even close. If they did the sport would be bankrupt before they could even play a game.
Jeff says:
its not sexism its entertainment i rather watch dwanye wade slam it down then watch a lay up in the WNBA women will get paid equal when their skills are on par with the male counterparts and no offence thats when hell freezes over
Bball lady says:
Let's face it! Men's basketball is just more exciting and fast paced. As a women athlete I can concede that.

So lets face it it comes down to economics, butts in the seats,  if you can't sell your product for as much as the other guy or gal, than that's  it's worth to the populace. Not that it's worthless as a contribution to society it's just worth less and as such the revenue is smaller as well as the salaries and so on.
Bottom line is there are lots of very fine female athletes and in our hearts we want them to succeed but this is entertainment and you can't legislate how sponsors, fans and society spends it money no matter how foolish it is. I for one know that if we force there to be a mandatory wage for equal rights in sports than all will suffer, that's not gender bashing that's free market. The better show wins the dough, sorry it just works that way.  I hope in the future things get better for our friends and fellow athletes who just happen to be women.
If I pass you on the road stop at Peets, because your buying.