Pay Inequality In Sports Essay

Words: 714
Pages: 3

The topic of inequality I am writing about pertains to women in sports. Women athletes do not receive as much pay or recognition as male athletes do. Female sports also attract much less attention in person and on television compared to male sporting events. This is seen even here at the University of Arizona: student and faculty seem to limit what they watch and talk about to male sporting events, especially basketball. Fans do no pay nearly as much attention to the women’s basketball team, nor do people care as much about the individual players. The larger issue is women are not valued as much as men are, even today in 2016. There is a phrase that goes as followed: you play like a girl! Why is this looked at as a bad thing? I believe this …show more content…
This law stated that “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance (Department of Education). Women now have the right to vote, work, etc. but why is it that, even in 2016 there is still an issue of inequality regarding sports and women? Women athletes are paid far less than most male athletes, and I believe this pay inequality holds true outside of just sports as well. According to the article Pay Inequality in Athletics, prize money for the 2014 PGA tour (which is only males) totaled over $340 million. This is sadly is more than five times the amount of the 2015 (ladies) LPGA tour, which totaled about $61.6 million. Similar inconsistencies exist within most all professional sports (Women's Sports Foundation). The same pay inequality occurs in the World Cup for soccer. In the World Cup, the men’s United States 2014 team finishing in 11th place earned $9 million dollars, and men that were eliminated still earned $8 million dollars each. This is four times as much as the 2015 women’s championship soccer team would earn!!! (Women's Sports Foundation). It was shocking to me that a nationally televised event showed this inequality airing across the world; yet the inequality still