Written By: Stephanie Rao, W’24

Women fighting for equality in sports has been no quiet struggle. Sports have been seen as a primarily male dominated industry, resulting in women sports often generating less media attention, despite the talent of female athletes. Lately though, female athletes have been battling the sports industry in a fight to get the recognition that they deserve. After winning Wimbledon in 2005, Venus Williams was published in The Times of London saying how Wimbledon, which she had admired and always looked forward to, had let her down after she realized the male winner was paid more than her. Eventually, in 2007, Wimbledon awarded the male and female winners the same amount of money after facing pressure not only from Williams but everyone else watching the match.

While women have been making strides on the field, on the court, and in the stadiums, it’s equally important to look at how women are being treated on the business side of the sports industry.

The problem is that women only make up a slim amount of workers in the sports industry, despite their avid interest in the different leagues. The majority of administrative and behind-the-scenes roles in sports are taken by males. Ohio University’s Athletic Administration compiled statistics in 2013 demonstrating the difference between the presence of women and men in these roles. The majority of sports agents are men, with only 40 out of 1,488 of sports agents in the NFL, MLB, or NBA Players Association being women. Sports journalism is also similarly dominated by men, with 90.1% of sports journalists for Associated Press Sports Editors newspapers and websites being men.

The reason why women are often not as present in sports careers is partially because they’re not given the same opportunities as men (some refer to this as the “old men’s club”) and when they are, they’re often paid less in those roles. For example, most female sportscasters earn less than their male counterparts. Well-respected female sportscasters earn around above 1 million but less than 4 million frequently, while most prominent sportscasters earn above 4 million.

Slowly, there’s been a push to get women to the front in the sports industry. A female in the industry that I’ve always admired is Becky Hammon, a former player for the San Antonio Stars and current assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs. She was the first female assistant coach in the NBA and serves as a role model for other women looking to get into the industry.

Kim Ng is also a force to be reckoned within Major League Visible, having served as senior vice president of baseball operations for 10 seasons. She lives and breathes baseball, just as much as her male partners. While consistently getting interviews for the general manager position at different teams, she never actually landed one, showing it was clear that while the industry respected her, they were scared to actually break the gender barrier and hire her. Now, Ng is the general manager of the Miami Marlins. She continues to set an example for other minorities and women that pursuing a career in sports is all about resilience.

(Photo taken from MLB Twitter) Kim Ng is the first female General Manager in MLB history.

Although women are slowly gaining steady footing in the sports industry, both on and off the court, there’s still a long way to go. There’s been a steady idea that women are only fit for certain positions, while men have a broader set of skills that can be applied in a variety of roles. The general business industry has this picture that men are better suited to leadership positions than women; this idea has been proven wrong time and time again, and it’s time that we stopped thinking like that entirely in every industry. With a wave of women, who are brave and unfearing, I’m sure soon we’ll see women in the positions of power that they have long deserved.

Sources: The New York Times, The New York Times, Good Sport, Work in Sports

Paving the Way for Women in Sports