With all the major summer sports coming to an end, it hard to not think about how women are represented in sports. There is no secret that women in sports like soccer, golf, tennis, etc. are underpaid compared to their male counterparts. I watch a lot of sports, especially over the summer. This summer I paid attention to the purse for each tournament for both men's and women's golf. And I have noticed how little the women get paid for winning their tournaments.
In the past, I would watch women sports and not pay attention to something like how much they get paid. But I started to become curious.
The fact that men and women get paid the same when they win majors in tennis, I wanted to see the difference in other sports. There is a difference in the pay and the only time that women in golf break the million dollar mark are when they win a major.
Just like golf, the major events in tennis is the only time that men and women earn the same amount of money. They earn the same amount of money for finishing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.
It feels that women get the short end of the stick in more ways than one.
Not only are women in sports underpaid, but they do not receive the same amount of airtime as their male counterparts. It is hard to get interested in women sports because I feel there is not enough of them on air. We rarely turn on the television and see women playing basketball or golf or any sport really. I feel the only time that women get a fair amount of airtime is when it is an Olympic time.
When the Olympics are on, that is the only time that you get the same amount of coverage for both men and women.
When people ask me when I don't watch a lot of women sports. I feel bad when I tell them that I am not interested in some of them. I think the lack of interest stems from the fact that there are not a lot of women sports on television. I watch a lot of tennis because I am a big fan of Verus and Serena, and I also watch a lot of LPGA (women's golf) tournaments because I am a big fan of a lot of those ladies.
But still, It is hard for me to be interested in other women sports. I watch women in soccer when they have their FIFA Women's World Cup every four years. Big events of all sports receive more airtime than their regular seasons, but it is more obvious in women sports. The FIFA World Cup for the men this past summer is always bigger than a regular season MLS game.
I think the only way we are going to get more girls interested in sports is that we have to give women an equal amount of airtime. They deserve the same level of representation because they work just as hard as the men do. They put the same amount of hours in the gym and in practice as their male counterparts.