NBA is huge and people worldwide watch it but I feel like you’ll find a very small amount of people interested in the WNBA and players in the WNBA make significantly less than their male counterparts, why?
In: Culture
It is simple economics. People are less interested in women’s sports and less willing to spend time and money on it, leaving less money to pay athletes in women’s leagues. There are a number of reasons.
* Ability – Part of the draw of spectator sports is to see the best, and that will almost always mean male athletes. If you just wanted to see the sport, there are plenty of college, high school, minor league and amateur leagues you could go watch, but people generally want to see the best, not the best out of some arbitrary group.
* Talent Pool – Fewer women go into amateur sports, and fewer of those try to become professionals. Part of that is because there is less money and recognition, but whatever the reason, many women who might have become great athletes choose other opportunities instead. This leads to a lower quality of athlete and a lower level of competition, above and beyond biological differences.
* Societal Expectations – For good or ill, athletics fits into our concept of being male more than it does being femaile. Men are supposed to be big and strong and aggressive and competitive, being an athlete is an extension of this kind of masculine identity. While women can be any of those things, they are not seen as aspects of femininity and will generally make a woman be perceived as less feminine. This has a big impact the advertising dollars that drive professional sports. Men will try a deodorant because they want to be like some big, sweaty superstar, while women have other role models when trying a product.
I think the problem is the level of competition. The only sport I think women have better competition is women’s college soccer. It’s not a male/female thing, just best games. I like soccer, but I dont watch MLS (US mens) because I watch english premier league. I think the USWNT is much better than the men’s team, but I watch any international soccer match.
Women athletes typically get paid less because they bring in less revenue. Here in LA the clippers and Lakers sell out the Staples center 21,000 seats regularly while the Sparks don’t. Lakers tickets in section 306 row 9 are $92/ea, while I could only find premier seats for the Sparks starting at $25/ea. The NBA also plays 82 games while the wnba plays 34.
The US women’s soccer team brought in more revenue than the US men’s soccer team and still made less. I can’t explain that… Maybe better agents with better negotiating skills?
Because they’re less of a spectacle. Men’s professional sports involve world-class athletes performing a level well beyond what their spectators could ever hope to attain.
Women’s professional sports generally involve competition at a level equivalent to high school boys or perhaps NCAA Div II/III men’s athletics. There are high school basketball teams in this country that could excel in the WNBA – if they weren’t excluded for being the wrong sex.
So you might as well ask why you’re not watching those high school boys play if the overall level of competition is similar.
Women’s sports actually tend to get a higher percentage of the revenue that they generate. But they have fewer people that pay to watch them so generate less revenue in total.
The reason that most women’s sports are watched less is that they tend to be slower paced, and the level of skill displayed is generally much lower than the male versions of the sport.
The lack of interest directly correlates to the lower pay. Fewer fans means lower ticket sales, smaller TV deals, smaller and fewer sponsorship deals which mean less revenue for the sport with which to pay the athletes.
As for difference in popularity, a lot has to do with men being faster, talker, more athletic, generally more exciting to watch.
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