"Pay us what you owe us": The gender pay gap in sports, explained by WNBA basketball players.

During the WNBA All-Star Game—the Women's National Basketball Association, the equivalent of the more famous men's NBA—on July 19, each player warmed up on the court wearing a T-shirt bearing a clear message: " Pay us what you owe us." The players are demanding better salaries and a more effective revenue-sharing system.

The protest took place in the midst of collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations. Despite increased attendance, record attendance, and a new $2.2 billion media rights agreement, players say their salaries have not kept pace with the league's growth . Currently, WNBA players earn just 9.3% of league revenue and an average salary of $102,000, compared to nearly 50% of league revenue and an average salary of over $1.1 million in the NBA .

The gender pay gap in sport

The gender pay gap in sports is still a very present reality—both in the United States, where the basketball protests took place, and globally, as well as in Italy. Generally, female athletes earn significantly less than men, even for equal results, effort, and competitive level.

If we look at the Forbes ranking of the 50 highest-paid athletes in the world , no women appear: this is the second consecutive year that no female athlete has managed to crack the world's top 50, despite record earnings for some athletes, such as Coco Gauff, who earned approximately $34.4 million in 2024. However, the threshold needed to enter the 2025 ranking was $53.6 million, well above the earnings of the world's highest-paid athletes. In recent years, the few women who have achieved this feat have been tennis players like Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, Li Na, and Maria Sharapova. Tennis is indeed the sport that has made the most progress, even if full equality between male and female athletes has not yet been achieved.

In football , however, the gap is extremely clear. For the 2025/26 season, each club participating in the group stage of the men's Champions League receives a fixed amount of €18.62 million, while additional prize money can bring the total to significantly higher figures. However, for the women's Champions League , the prize money is significantly lower : the total distributed is around €24 million, but the maximum amount for the winning team can reach approximately €350,000, plus bonuses for the previous stages: figures far removed from the men's figures. In Italy, the problem is also legal: the transition to professionalism in women's football only occurred in 2020, and this has led to profound inequalities in both wages and rights (pensions, maternity, sickness, etc.). The gap between the earnings of Italian female footballers and those of their male counterparts in Serie A remains very wide, both in terms of player registrations and gross annual salaries.

The causes of the gap

At the root of the gender pay gap in sports lies an assumption as invisible as it is powerful: the still widespread idea that the disparity is somehow "justified" by the fact that women's sport is less spectacular, less competitive, or less attractive to follow than men's. As journalist Chiara Valerio explains in Vitamine Vaganti, female athletes are often considered "naturally" slower, less strong, and less capable: a narrative that contributes to devaluing their performance and minimizing the importance of their work. This prejudice is not only scientifically incorrect, but it fuels a system that penalizes women from the very beginning , affecting their visibility, sponsorships, and compensation.

The sports industry

Another key factor is the structure of the sports industry, which for decades has favored what are considered "male" sports, such as soccer, basketball , or Formula 1. These are the sports that receive the most investment, the most massive media coverage, and the most profitable advertising campaigns . The vicious circle is clear: more visibility means more viewers, more revenue, more sponsors. And therefore higher salaries. But if women are systematically excluded from this value chain, it is impossible for them to bridge the gap. Companies, for their part, justify their disproportionate investment based on the "marketability" of male athletes, deemed more lucrative in terms of image and sales. Behind this seemingly neutral logic, however, lies a profoundly sexist idea of the sporting and commercial value of women.

Media coverage

The media also plays a crucial role in perpetuating this inequality. Despite the exponential increase in female participation in sports worldwide, media coverage of female athletes has remained unchanged for decades. According to numerous studies, women in sports receive only a minimal amount of media attention, and news about them often focuses on aesthetic, interpersonal, or personal aspects rather than their performance. This imbalance directly impacts the public perception of women's sports, which is marginalized and considered secondary, also negatively impacting the economic potential of female athletes.

Then there is the factor of representation in institutions and in technical sports roles: there is a lack of women holding leadership positions in sports organizations .

In European sports federations, in fact, only 14% of all decision-making positions are held by women. In Italy, among sports professionals, 19.8% of coaches, 15.4% of club managers, and only 12.4% of federation managers are women. It is clear, then, that the wage gap in sports is not the result of a lower quality or attractiveness of women's sport, but rather of a system built around gender stereotypes and economic logics that penalize women from the ground up. The WNBA players' demands are therefore not just wage demands, but a call for a profound review of the mechanisms that regulate the entire sports ecosystem.