This is an edited excerpt from an article written by Mari Bryn Dowdy and Mailise Marks in the February 2021 edition of New Jersey Lawyer, a publication of the New Jersey State Bar Association. The rest of this article takes a detailed look at some of the labor cases and negotiations involving elite women athletes. Read about this and some of the other issues involving sports law in our special issue here (login required).
Every professional league and sports organization in the United States has its own structure of compensation and benefits. While the level of pay varies from sport to sport, a common reality has arguably existed since the advent of professional sports in society: female athletes consistently make less than men.
Generally, athletes sign a contract with a particular team consisting of a base salary and usually a signing bonus. The base salary is typically guaranteed money, even if the athlete is injured or later released from the team. Athletes may also receive performance bonuses based on their team’s success, such as qualifying for tournaments or championships. Athletes who are represented by labor unions (i.e. U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team Players Association or Women’s National Basketball Players Association) regularly engage in contract negotiations with their employers.
Non-union athletes are typically represented by advocate organizations (i.e. National Women’s Hockey League Players’ Association or Commission for Equity in Women’s Surfing). Unlike unions, these entities do not engage in collective bargaining. Union athletes are able to use their collective bargaining agreements (CBA) to push for improvements in pay, benefits and working conditions. Athletes may also seek to challenge the league itself or even attempt to form new leagues when collective bargaining agreements result in gender inequality.
Gendered pay discrimination for professional athletes is not a novel issue and the fight for equality has continued to present day, even headlining some of the biggest labor disputes in recent sports history. From the basketball court, to the soccer pitch and even the hockey rink, women’s fight for fair compensation in professional sports presents an amalgamation of legal issues.
In recent years, female athletes have made great strides in bringing these issues to the public’s attention. However these steps are just the beginning of making truly substantial changes toward equality for professional female athletes. These disputes, negotiations and agreements brought many of legal issues into the national spotlight.
Since the creation of the Equal Pay Act and Title IX, female athletes in the United States have been fighting to compete on the same footing as men. Today, female professional athletes are building public support, organizations and partnerships in order to create a market that supports their skills and pays them what they are truly worth. Once sports reemerge from the freeze of the COVID pandemic, women’s leagues and federations will no doubt continue to face evolving expectations and novel issues as they answer the fundamental question of how to fairly compensate their athletes in 2021.