The Pay Gap in Play: Who Gets Paid and Why?” Compare: WNBA vs FIFA women’s pay progress. Examine budgeting and policy priorities in local sports

Global sports industries are still witnessing obvious gender pay disparities, even as audiences and revenues associated with women’s competitions break records. When comparing the WNBA and the FIFA Women’s World Cup and visually representing the differences between the two leagues, it is clear that the league structures, policy decisions, and commercial interests contribute to differences in compensating talented athletes. Knowing where the disparity lies will be beneficial in creating proposed policies that do not just increase pay to women athletes but create equal investment across all levels of women’s sports. 

For years, there has been a systematic underpayment of female athletes in regard to the amounts men's athletes have received, primarily due to low broadcast revenues, sponsorships, and media coverage. These reforms have resulted in some small incremental change. For example, tennis achieved equality in prize money at the Grand Slams in 2007 (Winslow 2019), which arguably led the way for other sports. However, team sport contexts still have far, far to go to meet equitable monetary compensation for female athletes, and advocacy for women in sports needs to continue to gain reform. 

An econometric analysis of 2021 salaries concluded that the average WNBA player made $75,000, with maximum salaries in 2020 $221,450, which was done under the collective bargaining agreement (“Wage Gap between NBA and WNBA”). In contrast, the average NBA player makes over $8 million, and the highest-paid players can earn more than $40 million in a single year (Baker 2019). There is also a difference in salaries as WNBA players receive only about 35% of league revenue after costs, compared to NBA players getting about 50% (Winslow 2019). The WNBA’s 2020 CBA raised the revenue sharing and salary cap, and it is worth noting that the total revenue is at $200 million, which is significantly lower than the NBA’s $13 billion overall revenue, being the biggest impediment to further salary increases (Habteyes 2024). 

FIFA raised Women’s World Cup prize money by 300% to $152 million in 2023, but this is only 35% of the $440 million available for the Men’s World Cup (Forbes 2023). In 2019 winners of the Women’s World Cup received $110,000 per player, while the men’s champions received $407,608 (Morra 2015; Winslow 2019). After the push back, FIFA guaranteed women’s teams direct payment for 2023 in order to prevent federations withholding funds (LaTime 2023). FIFA has stated it will provide full equal prize money by 2027, but legal scholars have doubts, explaining that FIFA’s human rights obligations from the Court of Arbitration for Sport, as well as when it is required to comply with European human rights law, could expedite achieving equalization (Jean Monnet Paper 2024).

The WNBA adopts a league salary-cap structured approach, and while they could improve individual salaries through collective bargaining, they have a limit. Women’s soccer payment models are similar in that payment is generally tied to tournament prize money and national federation regulations. The WNBA operates under a constrained total revenue structure, while FIFA is slow to consider pay parity given its substantial commercial revenues. Both pay structures indicate that without structural revenue-share changes with implications of policy, women’s pay will lag behind men's.

The value of television rights for WNBA games makes up only a small portion of NBA media deals, limiting the potential for sponsor or league interest (Greenlight 2024). Significantly, even though viewership numbers for the 2023 Women’s World Cup were high, the long-term media deals for women’s football introduce less value and have a shorter term than men’s. Women's athletes have historically relied more on personal endorsements than men do, yet are still earning less in total endorsements than men in a similar market (Aldephi 2023)

In order to obtain real gender equality in sports pay, it requires more than money. It requires binding revenue-sharing models, intentional media and sponsorship partnerships, and enforceable polices at League and Federation levels. The WNBA and FIFA Women’s World Cup highlight both the gains made and the work that remains to be done. The answer is for all stakeholders to invest and commercially support women’s sports in a manner that is equitable to men’s sports. In this way, we can abolish that difference of pay gap and unleash the powerful potential of women athletes on a global scale.