The gender pay gap in sports and the direction it can head

We like things to be fair, right? As a thought experiment on fairness, consider this:

From a young age, you find a sport you love. You dedicate all your time and energy to it. You practice, train, learn from the greats, delve into strategy, and devote all your free time to it. You become one of the best at it. You go to college and become one of the top players. You finally make it to the professional leagues. Congrats! So exciting!

Only at this point do you find out your gender. Male, and you can make millions. Female, and you can, on average, make 1% of what men make.¹ (And if you are non-binary or transgender, there is a likelihood you will not be allowed to compete).

This is a self-reinforcing cycle where women’s sports are funded at a fraction of men’s sports, not given equal coverage, and treated as secondary, and then critics point to low involvement and low viewership.

But times are changing! Some sports are moving to equal pay, and some media are moving to equal coverage. The coming years will show if all sports organizations can follow suit or be left behind.

Pay gap

Across the largest sports leagues, being on a men’s team means significantly more income than being on a women’s team.

Much of the data in this table comes from Adelphi University, while other sources are noted. As of this writing, there is no major equivalent for women to the NFL or MLB. Stats for professional softball were hard to find, but the listed difference is one of the largest disparities at 666 times the average salary. The largest could be considered American football (sometimes called gridiron football), in which women have to pay about $700 on average to participate, while men make millions.

Exclusion & different treatment

The FA

Women have been historically excluded from sports and sports coverage. Forms of soccer have been played for hundreds of years and have always been played by both men and women. It was even mentioned in Shakespeare! In the UK, the Football Association (FA) formed in 1863 to develop a formal set of rules “partly intended to stop on-pitch violence and make it more acceptable for women to play.”

According to the FA, by 1921 women’s soccer drew in crowds of up to 45,000 and had around 150 clubs. In the early 1900s, the British Ladies Football Club also drew in the women’s rights movement. Opposition grew to women playing the sport, and “some people questioned whether football was damaging women’s health”⁷.

In December of 1921, the FA voted to ban women from playing at any field or club affiliated with the FA. This ban lasted for 50 years.

Tour de France

The men’s Tour de France began in 1903 and as of 2025 has had 112 editions.

The women’s Tour de France, however, had one edition in 1955, ran for 6 years starting in 1984, and only returned in 2022⁸. Depending on how you count what is an “official” women’s Tour de France, there have been about 11. That’s ten times fewer events and, as seen in the table above, ten times less prize money.

Many of the female riders must work in addition to riding in order to make enough income. Thankfully, the organizing body has been raising the minimum salary, and the race is receiving near-equal branding.

The issue still remains that for the men, it is simply called Le Tour de France, and for the women, Le Tour de France Femmes, implying that the “main” event is so obviously the men’s that it doesn’t need to add “Hommes.”

In soccer, the issue is the same—there is the World Cup and the Women’s World Cup. The Euros and the Women’s Euros. Champions League and Women’s Champions League.

March madness

In college basketball, the issue of different treatment and naming was highlighted together somewhat recently. Up until 2022, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) called the men’s basketball tournament March Madness and the women’s tournament the “NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament.”

March Madness had branding, ads, a logo on the court, merchandise, etc. The women’s tournament received only a small amount of that same support. A viral TikTok⁹ from Sedona Prince showed the disparity between the women’s weight room (a bench and a small rack of weights) and the men’s expansive, fully supported weight room.

From there, images were shown of the disparity in the gifts received from the NCAA as well. Following the uproar, starting in 2022, both tournaments are called March Madness, and athletes receive the same gift package.

Future and opportunities

The future of women’s sports is bright, and closing the pay gap is possible if organizations and media choose to take it in that direction. McKinsey & Company has an excellent analysis¹⁰ of the potential future of women’s sports. They estimate that there is a 2.5 billion dollar opportunity, pointing out that revenue grew 4.5 times faster than men’s sports between 2022 and 2024, and pointing to megastars like Caitlin Clark, Coco Gauff, and Simone Biles who have millions of fans.

Whereas before, women’s leagues were excluded from sporting venues, not televised, not advertised, and not invested in, which caused a reinforcing negative cycle, we are now seeing the opposite. McKinsey points out that this is due to fandom:

“The number of fans is growing, and these fans are watching more games, which is boosting broadcast viewership and game attendance at stadiums. With fan interest rising, media companies are spending more to purchase rights to televise games. In turn, marketers are investing more in their sponsorship of teams and athletes to better position their brands in front of a growing demographic of engaged fans.”

Adelphi University points to other wins such as the US Women’s National Soccer team reaching a major equal pay settlement, record attendance at the 2023 World Cup, equal pay in tennis majors, and many other sports organizations (like squash, surfing, IFSC climbing, etc.) choosing to have equal prize money.

The coming years will show which sport governing bodies decide to pursue equality and which are left behind.