A gap? But Why?

Sports have been around for an insanely long time and have entertained people from around the world for centuries. Events such as the Olympics have been around since times as old as 776 BCE, and have featured a variety of sports, while entertaining millions of people, for centuries. Despite this, women were allowed in events such as the Olympics, only as recently as 1900. Even then, the representation was very inadequate as, out of the 997 athletes that took part, only 22 of them were females while the rest were all males. The females were only allowed to participate in 5 sports, while the males participated in 19 different sports. From this, it is easily evident that women's representation in sports is insufficient, and only in present times has improved considerably.

I watch a lot of cricket and football and from what I have seen, male sporting events are telecasted to a much greater extent than female events. This is understandable, as female events aren't watched much, but the reason for that is the lack of exposure. Men's events, such as the premier league and IPL (Indian Premier League) are advertised to a very great extent, along with this they are spoken about on social media, which in a way is free publicity. This is not the same for women's sports. Although women's sports events are still advertised and spoken about, the volume of publicity they receive is much lower than that of male sporting events. This is a major problem but currently, the situation has improved to a great extent, with the advertisement of women's events such as the ICC women's world cup. This positive step is just one, in the path towards equality in sports.

Another prominent problem that plagues all jobs is unequal pay for women. It's not just in companies and businesses that this is seen, even in sports this can be widely seen. And this is not restricted to any particular sport but can be seen across all sports, whether it be cricket football, hockey, tennis, etc. In the two sports that I watch the most, football and cricket, this has been a problem for a long time. This is visible from the fact that the highest-paid male footballer, Lionel Messi is paid 2.1 million pounds a week, amounting to about 108.2 million pounds a year, while the highest-earning female footballer, Carli Lloyd earns about 374 thousand pounds annually. To put this into context, Messi earns more than 5 times Carli Lloyd's annual salary, in a week, or other words, Carli Lloyd earns about 0.3% of Messi's annual salary. This shows how big the rift between male and female sports is. Even in cricket, the highest-paid Indian male cricketer, Virat Kohli, is paid 7 crore rupees, annually, while the highest-paid Indian female cricketer, Smriti Mandhana earns 50 lakh rupees. Once again, there is a huge and visible difference in pay, as Smriti Mandhana earns fourteen times lesser than Virat Kohli, annually.

Although this is true, we can also argue that this is done because female sports do not receive adequate funding, and this can be blamed for several reasons. Female sports have never made a huge breakthrough into the sports industry and have always been overshadowed by male sports for years. Although there are people who watch female sports, the viewership is much less than that of male sports, due to which it is hard for female sports to ever get recognized. Along with this, female sports tournaments aren't broadcasted to the same extent as that of male sport, this is due to its low viewership, but so far, no significant efforts have been taken to help change this. This lack of viewership impacts the salaries and money involved in the respective sports and therefore can be a reason for the pay gap but when it is thought about, could this be the sole reason for such an insane pay gap?

Well to be fair, it could be, considering the premier league makes about 5.15 billion under normal circumstances, which is because it is the most widely watched sports league in the world, with an audience of 4.7 billion viewers. On the other hand, the women's premier league only has a maximum audience of 3 million viewers which is much significantly less. Therefore, with a significantly lower income, it becomes evident that the gargantuan male football industry just towers over the newly formed women's leagues.

Although this is the case, the world keeps developing and so does people's outlook towards women's sports, therefore over the past years we have seen some very significant changes in the sporting world. Changes such as increasing publicity, help increase viewership, as a result of which, the revenue of the sport increases, therefore allowing for better pay for female athletes. Other larger steps have been taken, such as the England Football Association, putting out a statement saying that they would pay, both male and female athletes the same amount of money per appearance. Such steps, bridge the gender gap and make for a more equal world. Although from what we can see now, the sporting world is dominated by male tournaments, the female sports industry is on its way up, with a significant and progressive increase in viewership, that could one day hopefully compete with men's sports or even achieve milestones greater than that.