The International Cricket Council (ICC) has recently announced equal prize money for both men’s and women’s teams at ICC events. It’s a historic step given the pay gulf that exists between the two genders.
Consider that England won $1.6 million in prize money for winning the men’s T20 World Cup, while the Australian women’s team won $1 million for the same trophy.
It’s not just in cricket. Pay disparity is a lingering issue across generations and across most professional sports.
For example, the $150 million prize money in the Fifa Women’s World Cup, which began in Australia and New Zealand on Thursday, is a 300 percent hike over its 2019 edition. But it still remains only about a third of the $440 million that the men got in the Qatar World Cup last year.
According to Basketball Reference, in 2021-22, NBA players earned an average of $5.3 million a year, with superstars like Stephen Curry making $45.7 million. In comparison, the Women"s NBA players earned an average of $130,000 a year with the highest-paid players making about $230,000.
Tennis player Naomi Osaka, Forbes’ highest-paid woman athlete in 2022 with $51.1 million, was nearly $30 million short of basketball player Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was ranked 10th on the overall list.
A 2021 study by the BBC found that male professional golfers in 2014 earned an average of $1.1 million, while female professionals earned a mere $212,000. That’s a gap of $888,000 by 2021, that gap had increased to $1.25 million.
The fight for pay parity has been a long and arduous one for women. At the forefront of the few victories they’ve notched up is tennis player Billie Jean King.
In 1968, King won the first Wimbledon title of the Open era, bagging a pay cheque of £750 compared to the £2,000 that was received by Rod Laver, the men’s singles champion.
First Published: Jul 22, 2023, 08:12
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