As the NFL season begins, I am constantly amazed at how much professional athletes earn. As some of you know, my brother is currently a rookie in the NFL, vying for a position on an NFL team like many of his former teammates from Tennessee. However, I was floored when I read an article about how much one of my brother's former teammates will earn this year (approximately $8M - click here to read). However, in the arena of women's sports, few (if any) female athletes earns that sort of money. Not Lisa Leslie, not Mia Hamm, not Jackie Joyner Kearsey, and not even Laila Ali. In fact, not only do women not earn as much as their male counterparts in the sports realm, but women sports leagues constantly struggle to maintain attendance and generate decent profit levels. Check out this article about the discrimination women face in professional sports in term of pay: (Click Here)
This article theorizes:
"The norm for females in the workplace remains a covert guiding hand into the “Pink Ghetto” -- a place of limited advancement where women (and people of color) end up when segregated into lower paying, undervalued occupations."
Why are women in professional sports so grossly underpaid?
Is it due to the lack of huge audiences at their events, or is the lack of perception in that people are used to being fans of male sports and believe the professional male sports' teams are just better to watch?
On an even broader note, have women gotten closer to breaking the glass ceiling, or are we all still stuck in the "Pink Ghetto" when it comes to equality in the workplace?
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