The highest-paid male soccer player, Cristiano Ronaldo, will make $230 million in the 2025-2026 season from his soccer contract alone, according to ESPN. On the other hand, the highest-paid female soccer player, Trinity Rodman, will make a little over $2 million this year from her soccer contract with the Washington Spirit, according to the Independent. Many people have heard about the pay disparity between men and women in the workplace, and the same applies in sports.
Many factors contribute to the large gap in pay between female and male athletes in most sports. Some of these factors include women’s historical absence in sports, less media coverage and less sponsorships going towards women’s sports than men’s sports, and revenue.
It is well known that women have been excluded from participating in sports in the past due to the societal views placed on women and the expectations for them. For example, women were not able to compete in the marathon at the Olympics until 1984, and it was not until 2012 that all Summer Olympic sports were opened to both genders. Men’s professional sports have been around for much longer than women’s professional sports, giving them a much bigger lead in developing media coverage and fanbases, which contributes to the higher pay that male athletes receive in comparison to female athletes.
Since women’s sports get much less media coverage, they get less viewership and advertisements, resulting in lower pay. Less coverage also leads to fewer sponsorships for these athletes, as they do not get as much attention as male athletes, which also contributes to the pay disparity seen.
“I think there needs to be more people watching sports in general [for women to be paid as much as men] and then more sponsorships, maybe to the leagues, so that they can pay their players more,” FHS sophomore and athlete Allison Brunnings said.
Men’s sports also tend to generate more revenue, which is a big part of why the gap in pay between the two genders is so vast. However, women’s sports are on the rise and growing much faster than men’s sports, with revenues greatly increasing, which will hopefully reduce or even close the pay gap between female and male athletes.
“Women’s sports are very discriminated towards, because a lot of people don’t want to see [women] perform in sports a lot,” FHS sophomore and athlete Arshpreet Ruprah said. “I think a lot of people prefer to watch men perform in sports than women.”
The low pay that these female athletes receive can have a negative impact on them. 500 professional female athletes from a variety of different sports and countries were surveyed from August 2024 to October 2024 in a survey conducted by Parity. The findings in this survey show how little these female athletes are being paid, as 74% of these athletes had another job, over 50% paid more to participate in their sports than they actually made, 58% of the athletes were paid $25,000 or less and 93% worry about money.
Meanwhile, male athletes are making much more money. Take, for example, the NBA, where the average yearly salary is $8.2 million according to Dallas Weekly. An annual income of $8.2 million is more than 99.99% of Americans.
“I feel like it should be more fair, because [female athletes are] also putting in the work [and] they’re playing major league sports,” Brunnings said.
Overall, female athletes get paid less than men for many reasons, but with the developing interest, attention and media going towards women’s sports, one can hope to see changes in this pay gap soon.
“I hope that [female athletes] get paid a lot more than they do now, and that they’re paid for their worth and [their pay] gets closer to men,” Brunnings said.
