Women vs Men: Who is a Better Athlete

Gender equality has been a huge issue since the dawn of time. Women earn less in many different spheres and men simply didn't use to look at them as big competition. However, that has changed over the years and women are getting their part of the gender equality share. But, in sports, there is still a bit of a gap when it comes to pay, equality, competitiveness and overall success in different kinds of sports. However, to be sure, here are the differences between men and women in sports and who might be better.

Pay Gap in Elite Sports

This is probably the biggest issue there is when it comes to gender equality. In major elite sports, such as basketball and soccer, women make significantly less money. For example, DeAndre Ayton, an NBA player will earn more than $5million next season, while WNBA player A'ja Wilson, will earn only $50,000 during her rookie year. What is more, NBA players' pay starts at $500,000 while for the WNBA it starts somewhere around $79,000. Which is pretty much not equal, even though they put in the same amount of effort into their games and training. What is more, it turns out that the worst NBA players earn considerably more than the WNBA's best players.

As far as soccer is concerned, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi earn about $90million a year and they do deserve every penny, of course, and they certainly are two of the most successful players ever. However, when you look at the women leagues, you can say that they are grossly underpaid. More precisely, we can take the United States Women's National Team as an example and see that they have outperformed their male counterparts. And even though they have made such an effort and success, they are still not getting paid equally. Female players do receive higher base salaries for playing in their leagues, but they get much less of everything else than men. For example, male players receive an abundance of bonuses simply for showing up for the game, while female players only get a game bonus if they played in 20 friendlies.

On the other hand, we have tennis which is one of the sports that treats genders equally. Both men and women earn the same amount of money as prizes, at least when it comes to the four Grand Slam tournaments and some other high-profile events. It seems that there is no pay gap and both men and women get to compete in their respective categories and opponents. For example, both Roger Federer and Serena Williams took home $4million at Australian Open, and both Rafael Nadal and Sloane Stephens took $3.7million at the U.S. Open. It turns out they are all equal, right? Well, that's partially true. Even though they receive the same amount of money when winning the championships, female tennis players still earn 80 cents for each dollar a male player earns, which is still a fair amount of pay gap. However, it is still significantly smaller than those found in other sports, such as soccer and basketball.

Viewership: Men vs Women

There are also some discrepancies when it comes to who watches more women and men sports. Most of the sports played by male players get more attention, sponsors, and viewers than those performed by women. However, this isn't mostly true when it comes to tennis, because the US Women's Open Final had more viewers than the Male's Final. But then again, when it comes to football, soccer, boxing and MMA and other traditional sports, male performers get many more viewers and attract bigger sponsors and endorsements because of more exposure and attention.

Women Don't Sell Their Loyalty That Easily

Even though women's sports don't get that much attention, it doesn't mean that women would sell their loyalty easily. Most women players of any sports will prefer to stay loyal to their teams and don't accept higher bidders to transfer. For women, sports is rarely about money only. They have much more to prove unfortunately and they often decide to stay true to their team, rather than to bidders.

There is also the popular belief that women are much more fierce and dare we say savage. There are numerous videos going around the internet where female soccer players continue the game even though they have a bloody nose, while male players often roll around as soon as they get tripped. But they have their own reasons for it. We can't judge who's a better athlete. They are all giving their best to earn their place and publicity and all of them are truly loyal to their teams and personal goals.