Why Should We Care about the Gender Pay Gap in Professional Sports?

Even though the United States is championing equality and trying to bridge the wage gap, and the National Basketball Association (NBA) is partnering with the national “Lean In” campaign, there is still a staggering gap between the salaries of female sports stars compared to their male counterparts. For example, per their respective collective bargaining agreements, the maximum salary for a WNBA player is $111,500 while the minimum salary for an NBA player is $525,093. What this means is that if you combine the salaries of Maya Moore, Skylar Diggins, Diana Taurasi, and Candace Parker, “the faces of the WNBA,” they collectively make less than the unknown bench player on any NBA team.