Around this time of the year, basketball is in full swing. It’s fairly common to hear about the games and how teams are doing. What we mostly hear about is male teams in the NBA, what most people don’t talk about is the WNBA and how their pay is significantly different than that of the NBA. I’ve never been exactly a huge basketball fan, but I was curious enough to do some research on the wage gap in genders in professional sports. What I found was that even though professional women athletes push their bodies on the court, they are paid much less. Is it the same for other professional athletes in other sports? What are the reasons? Here’s 500 words on what I learned about the professional athletes wage gap difference in gender, specifically looking at the WNBA and the NBA.

Sports are everywhere you go, from the radio, to restaurants dedicated to playing every game imaginable, to organizations in your own neighborhood. Sports are not only entertainment for some, but for other’s they live and breathe it, whether they are on the team or coaching it. People who end up being professional athletes and pursue this career are receiving wages that can range from thousands to millions, but it all depends. What depends on who you are in either the WNBA or the NBA, your “role” (not exactly sure what the right term is) on the team will increase or decrease your paycheck. According to Vice Sports, the big factor in athlete’s wages is how much annually the NBA (or WNBA) is making. The year of 2013-2014 the NBA’s revenue was supposedly around $4.7 billion, according to Vice Sports the WNBA was in between $23.2 - $35 million.

With that revenue difference one can easily see that the women’s league receives smaller wages because of the fact that they are not pulling in as much money as the NBA. Due to popularity one can assume, the NBA is more commonly talked about and watched versus the WNBA. Most people just on that fact alone would say that the NBA players deserve higher wages if that’s how the system works. It just seems unfair almost that women who are doing exactly the same thing as men are getting paid significantly less due to the firms/company’s revenue is much lower. One can hope that over time the WNBA will gain more popularity and the wages would be more similar for those women who play to the NBA. Or maybe they’re will actually be more WNBA games broadcasted and advertised better in the future to draw in more crowds. Those women are playing the same game as those men in the NBA but aren’t getting the same outcome as them. Due to the fact that NBA has years on the WNBA as a league, there is a ways to go for its revenue as well. Maybe one day the wage gap will be close to nonsexist, but as of right now it’s an issue that is very apparent to anyone who just looks at the numbers.