The NBA is popular in the US yet not many people watch the WNBA (where they also complain about equal pay)
minimum wage
Culturally women’s sports aren’t as big there. They’re also nonexistent in central and South America, you don’t have the feeders of junior clubs etc. You can also say similar things about most women’s sports even in the US. The field is undeniably less deep in most college sports, which is why you tend to get these runs where one team just dominates for like a decade and there’s less variation in who wins. On the other hand you have a men’s team like Duke, arguably the most dominant in modern college basketball have two championships in ten years.
Ultimately, the reality is sports are not nearly as competitively developed even in major western countries for women, some of it is because you don’t have the viewership at the pro level, the fan worship or the $100M contracts to incentivize the whole system. Most of it is because people like watching humans perform feats at the pinnacle of ability, this is why minor league players make $20k a year and nobody wants to watch people play a slower version of the game with a smaller official ball at half speed. A friend of mine was a good varsity basketball player and I watched him absolutely destroy his girlfriend in college who was a full scholarship starter for a major D1 school. Serena Williams once got dismantled by a player ranked around 200th in the world. Justine Henin lost to a retired pro 20 years older than her in the same year she won a women’s major. I’m always surprised when people act mind boggled over the fact that there are differences inherent to gender that manifest themselves like they haven’t been living on earth.
The problem is, most people complaining about the differences in pay at the pro level also don’t watch any women’s sports regularly and are part of the problem. People want false progress where we basically tax society for something they won’t watch instead of actually investing in supporting the team themselves at a grassroot level.
https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/ebs-ebs0000049.pdf
Just to note—the US men did not make it to the World Cup last year. So if the men (who weren’t even playing) had the same amount of viewers as the women (who won the championship), then that tells you most of what you need to know.
lets be real. say we pick the shittiest nba dude that has played in the last 10 years. are you telling me that lisa leslie cant beat hte shittiest dude in the nba?
also just to clarify there is no ban against women in the nba. there was actually a chick that was drafted. they just voided after. so she never played but for a cool minute she was nba player.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liKnJ-ejztw
tehre is no reason why the men’s league should be segregated. there is reason for the women’s team. anyways i used to be part of this asian basketball league that had an asian requirement lol. thats kinda racist right lol
She would lose 100%, I’d be willing to bet all future and past earnings on it.
i would like to watch the local junior college boys team play against the WNBA champs. I’ll bet my paycheck vs yours that the Junior college boys win.
I wonder who the worst player in the NBA is. Like, there are 30 teams, and each team has a 13 man roster. That’s 390 players. Who is the worst one? Who’s #390? And if he played the best female in the world in a game of 1 on 1, how many times would he win out of 100? (My bet - 100 times out of 100)
edit - you guys beat me to it.
Low stakes, huh?
Lol, simply mean that the scale and infrastructure are not comparable. Do they technically exist? Sure, but for all intensive purposes its non-effectual.
yep,France 98 had 3.4 billion. With the population increase in 20 years you’d figure FIFA would have figured out a way to increase viewership proportionally but they’re all probably super busy avoiding jail time.
Two of India Pakistan cricket matches have pulled one billion viewers alone lol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-watched_television_broadcasts#International
Managed to make it to Englestaan for the first time for the world cup!! Absolute scenes, kamariya being belted out in the streets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlgvzAkjTlk
this white dude was also selling jhal muri outside the stadiums
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQYYyp4Bdbw
can’t believe we lost to the Kiwis 
PS : Bangalas and their Bengali food in Tower Hamlets.YUM!!
This thread reminds me of the most delusional man vs women athlete comparison ever, when Ronda Rousey said it was possible for her to beat Cain Velasquez and some people believed her LOL
With respect to womens football it’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you don’t invest in it and market it people won’t watch it. FIFA have been guilty of ignoring the game for a long time, even when the world cup was running in France there were hardly any billboards or signs to signify that the pinnacle of womens sport was currently going on and that’s in the host nation.
US soccer federation has done more than any other nation in promoting womens football, the league there is miles ahead of anyone else even though some European nations, Japan and China now seem to be putting money into it, it was started earlier and is run efficiently and professionally. It seems counterproductive for the US womens team to sue these guys, go after FIFA and the case becomes more credible.
Also, who the heck celebrates so much when you’re 10-0 up against a bunch of part time players who are giving their best and obviously distraught at being so far of the required level? disgusting!!
and wtf was that tea cup celebration? I was kinda hoping ingerland equalized and imitated someone squatting and eating a hamburger
PS : Rose Lavelle is a phenomenal player. Alex Morgan may get all the hype but Rose poise, balance and touch is fantastic.
Tennis has the right model for equal pay at least for the major tournaments in that the men’s and women’s events are pooled (held at the same time) and equal prize money is paid from the pool. There is no men’s Wimbledon and a separate women’s Wimbledon a few weeks later. All the revenue that is generated from Wimbledon gets distributed equally so Serena will get the same paycheck as Federer if they both win Wimbledon. Even though Federer would beat Serena 6/0 6/0.
^ Yeah, I think its great for tournaments to do that. I don’t think they should be obliged to if the economics don’t support it, but if they make that decision, I think that’s a great move. One thing about tennis though, I think women’s tennis draws a much more comparable crowd vs men’s than the disparities in some of the other sports.
Men’s tennis is more popular than women’s tennis by a long shot even though I agree with your point re: women’s tennis vs other sports. The economics just don’t justify paying women equally unless you get the men to subsidize the women which is essentially what tennis does. Billie Jean King is a fricking genius!
Ok fine. Men’s tennis is more popular than women’s tennis. However, men’s soccer is 10000000000000x more popular than women’s soccer, like not even in the same universe.
Seriously—other than tennis (the obvious one), is there ANY sport that you’d rather watch the women than the men?
The only ones I can think of are the ones that titillate the senses, like figure skating or curling.