Inequality

Louisville hoped to be the second school to bring two championships home in both Men’s and Women’s tournament basketball in the same season. But the women’s team did not receive the deserved support as their male counterparts. As exciting as it is to watch cars being restored, you’d think more people would like to see one of the greatest basketball coaches in history lead an exceptionally talented team to a championship. In fact, the 2013 NCAA men’s basketball tournament averaged nearly 11 million viewers throughout its coverage; not nearly the number of viewers of the women’s game. In general, people do not give women’s sports the credit or attention it is due—at the high school, college or professional level. The following are some very interesting statistics mentioned: The NBA has a salary cap of $58 million. While the WNBA caps $878,000. The average Division I college men’s basketball coach could pay for an entire WNBA team’s salary and still have around $1 million in play money left over. The average NBA player makes $5.15 million, compared to $72,000 for a WNBA player. The WNBA minimum is $37,260, but the NBA minimum is $473,604. By the time you get to league maximum salaries, things only worsen. The WNBA has a hard cap on maximum salaries of $105,500 while the NBA maximum salary is influenced by a number of variables, including whatever the team cap is for any given year and how long a player has been in the league. Players who have been in the league six years or less can earn up to $14.5 million and the number only goes up from here (excluding endorsements). These numbers suggest a few things: the NBA’s worst player, making the minimum salary, is still worth nearly five times as much as the WNBA’s best player. The NBA’s best, most experienced player is worth 200 times as much as the WNBA’s best player or in reverse, the WNBA player is worth less than one percent of the NBA player. Since the WNBA has around 143 players, a player at the top of the NBA is worth well more than the entire WNBA population.Gender inequalities persist on many levels still to this day. And to the extreme that it is, is unfortunate. One could argue it’s because there is more money in the NBA than the women’s league to reflect and support the players’ salaries but generally why does the population prefer to watch a mediocre man over a talented women perform? Gender inequalities cross-culturally are the most prominent because many nations, like Japan or India, in the world cannot discrimination on the basis of race because 98% of the population belongs to one ethnic group. By default gender is the greatest discriminatory factor globally.

http://www.carolinacoastonline.com/news_times/sports/article_d7ab6986-a382-11e2-9247-0019bb2963f4.html

Rayna Tyson. April 12, 2013. 8:25 PM