Gender pay gap in sports

The U.S. Soccer Federation recently announced that it has reached a deal to pay the U.S. Men's National Team and the U.S. Women's National Team equally, eliminating a contentious pay gap that saw female players earning less.

Nicole LaVoi, director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport in the College of Education and Human Development, provides expert comment on the pay gap between men and women professional athletes.

Nicole LaVoi. Ph.D.
“Gender pay equity in sport for women is long overdue, especially at the national team level for soccer where the women have outperformed the men for years, doing the same job, with less resources.

“It is not lost on me that it took a woman, Cindy Parlow Cone, to get this deal done. When women are in leadership positions, they are more likely to advocate for what is fair and right for women, which is something men should have been doing all along.

“What is good for women is good for everyone and that shows up in this deal as men now get paternity leave and child care in this new collective bargaining agreement.”

Nicole M. LaVoi, Ph.D. is a senior lecturer in the area of social and behavioral sciences in the School of Kinesiology, where she is the director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport. LaVoi focuses her research on the relational qualities of the coach-athlete relationship, the physical activity of underserved girls, the barriers and supports experienced by women in sport coaching and media representations of girls and women in sport.

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