The economic impact of sexism in hockey
Yanna Glaspy
A popular debate in the sports world is the discussion of the pay difference between female and male athletes. But just how significant is this gap? Are male athletes really that much better that they deserve a higher salary because of their gender?
In 2017, Amanda Kessel was the highest paid NWHL skater, with a one-year, $26,000 contract. In the 2016-17 season, she totaled 24 points in 12 games, averaging 2 points per game. Kessel has won a medal at every international tournament she's competed in; Silver in Sochi, Gold in 2013 IIHF Women's World championship, Silver in 2012 IIHF Women's World championship, and Gold at the 2011 and 2012 Four Nations Cup (“Content Search: Kessel).
In 2017, Shea Weber was the highest paid NHL player (in salary alone, not including endorsements), with a one-year, $14 million salary for the 2016-17 season. In that season, he totaled 42 points in 78 games, an average of 0.54 points per game. He did not make the top 20 in the league for goals, assists, points, plus/minus, not even penalty minutes. Weber participated in the 2007 IIHF World championship, but ended up getting suspended for 3 games. He played in the 2009 IIHF World championship as an alternate captain, and lead all the defensemen in the tournament and 3rd overall in points, but ultimately lost the gold medal game to the Russian team. He also won Gold in the 2010 Vancouver games, Gold in Sochi, and Gold in the 2016 World Cup (Shea Weber Stats).
In the average game, Kessel was four times as likely to record a goal or assist than Weber; however, Weber was paid roughly 53,846% as much as Kessel. This is a pretty discouraging statistic for young girls dreaming of being pro hockey players. Studies show that girls are 6 times more likely than boys to quit playing sports by high school, and by age 17, ½ of all girls will have quit playing sports (Factors).
So, we’ve established that women’s pay doesn’t come anywhere near equal to men’s, even when performance is better, and obviously there’s a big monetary difference at the professional level, but what does this mean for the average high school girl, and the economy as a whole?
One season of ice fees, plus travel expenses, such as driving to away games, hotel stays, team dinners, cost tens of thousands of dollars. Not to mention the thousands spent on equipment each year. Plus there’s summer camps, skating clinics, private coaching sessions that all get tacked on to a year of playing. All in all, a single season can cost around $40,000. It’s estimated that in the 2017-18 season, there were approximately 10,000 high school girls playing hockey, compared to about 35,000 high school boys (Participants). This means that the sports economy was missing out on around a million dollars in total, due to this discouragement of women in sports.
And all the girls who quit playing? They lost a great way to stay in shape, have positive interactions with others, and better both their physical and mental health. They also lost out on opportunities to learn and demonstrate leadership, gain confidence, and improve their cooperation and teamwork skills that would help in the future their careers.
Works Cited
“Content Search: Kessel.” National Women's Hockey League, www.nwhl.zone/roster_players/13721065?subseason=512423.
“Factors Influencing Girls' Participation in Sports.” Women's Sports Foundation, www.womenssportsfoundation.org/support-us/do-you-know-the-factors-influencing-girls-participation-in-sports/.
“Participants U.S. High School Ice Hockey 2009-2018 | Statistic.” Statista, www.statista.com/statistics/282093/participation-in-us-high-school-ice-hockey/.
“Shea Weber Stats.” Hockey-Reference.com, www.hockey-reference.com/players/w/webersh01.html.
Wulf, Steve. “The Grand Total of Youth Hockey.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, 2 July 2013, www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/9430472/grand-total-youth-hockey.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think that the economy and the NHL is missing out on big money for advertising women’s professional hockey because mainly the fact that people don’t want to watch it. I’m not saying that women’s hockey league is any better or worse than men’s but the fact that whenever I go to watch some TV and i flip through the channels I only see men’s NHL on TV. Maybe that it is a smart move for the NHL to only show men’s hockey games. The reason that people really like to see men’s hockey games it is smarter and easier to divert that money to one area and not to expand and make it more complicated to add women’s professional hockey games to regular television. The NHL wants to make money and spending a portion of that for women’s hockey when there is no profit being made from that I think is not good and they should divert all their attention to men’s hockey to make the most money and then stimulate that into the economy.
I disagree completely, first of all, the NHL and NWHL are different, the NWHL doesn't need the support from the men's league, they support themselves on their own. Women's volleyball is highly popularized compared to men's. Why is that? Our school doesn't have a men's volleyball team, but it has a women's. Would you say that it's fair for that? Now, this isn't just about the economics of those leagues, while they are important, the main idea of the article was to emphasize the lost revenue companies, colleges, high schools, and teams altogether have from women being pushed out of the sport. What's on TV is not the only thing available. How often do you see women's gymnastics on TV besides the Olympics? Yet that is still a largely popular sport. There is a larger economy out there than just the NHL, TV is not the only way to get information. Football and Baseball have become highly sexist sports with MLB and NFL having scandals from the beginning, discouraging females from even considering the idea. The main focus isn't about the NHL on TV. The article points out the gender differences in sports, not what you watch.
DeleteI’ve played hockey for 4 years and there was a few girls on my co-ed team. Sports these days have different viewpoints about the genders in sports. Pay between men and women is one of the biggest issues throughout sports. People think men should get paid more in sports because they are more fit for it in a way. Now Alexander Ovechkin is the highest paid NHL player as of now coming in at a stunning $80 million after endorsements and all of that fun stuff. But the fight between payment and roles of the two genders in sports will continue on for a lifetime. They both are capable of doing the same thing but possibly at different intense levels so they should get paid about the same in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteYou're comparing the gender pay difference of one professional sport to all professional sports, but really every sport has different viewpoints on how women should be paid compared to men. Also you only compare two players and talk like it is the same way for every hockey player when really it could just be those two players that are paid very differently. Another point is that maybe high school girls that play hockey and stop after high school is because they were just in it for the fun of playing the sport maybe they weren’t discouraged by the pay difference.
ReplyDeleteMatt Irwin is the lowest paid NHL player for the 2018-19 season, with a salary of $650,000. This is still 25 times what Kessel was paid last season. He played in 16 games, scored once and had 3 assists, for an average of .25 points per game. Kessel was 8 times as likely to score in a game. Amanda Kessel is, statistically speaking, a stronger player than Matt Irwin. If more effort were to be put into advertising women's hockey and making it widely available to young girls, they would have more fans to bring in more money.
DeleteThere is no solid future for young girls in hockey. College programs are limited and underfunded, experiencing coaching turnover often due to underpayment of coaches and better offers from different programs, most often from men's programs.
Would you honestly not be discouraged from participating in something if it always took the backburner to other people, even if you are working just as hard and are just as passionate about your work, especially if you were pushed aside for something as arbitrary as your gender?
Sports can be a big competition when it comes to different genders. Boys think they’re better than girls and girls think that they’re better than boys we have our debates. But what is surprising to me is that at least approximately 10,000 female athletes playing ice hockey in the 2017-18 season and over 35,000 male athletes playing ice hockey as well. The NHL was founded back in 1917 and has been making a huge jump for people to actually watch hockey for their entertainment and for the NWHL, it was founded 3 years ago meaning that not as much people watch the NWHL than they would for the NHL because this new sport that has been added is still trying to get an increase on fans.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the fact that men and women should be paid closer to an equal amount. However if men are generating more revenue from people going to their games and women aren't generating a lot of revenue this is when you have to take into consideration how much money can be sent out to the players. Also I do agree that high schools or even colleges can be losing money because girls quit sports at a younger age. It is kind of expensive to play sports and with more people playing, more money could be earned.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comment. Hockey, overall, is a very interesting and fun sport to watch. With that said, it is mostly male populated and therefor men generate more income in this particular sport. That does play a role in the pay rate of the player. It will be interesting to see in the coming years how women athletes pay rate will change as our society becomes more or less accepting of women in certain sports.
DeleteI liked your idea of your article. I think to solve the problem of women not getting paid as much as male athletes though is to combine male and female sports. This way they can get paid the same and if the women athlete is good enough then she can be paid just as much as a man. I think the problem is when you have two different leagues. Men leagues tend to be the only successful one. So they should combine the leagues so women have an opportunity to make it big.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is totally unfair that women are paid less when statistically they are better at the sports they play compared to men, but people have a lot of different viewpoints on the difference in pay between men and women. If more women become inspired to keep playing, more money could be put into the economy. Although, since hockey is such an expensive sport, a lot of money is already getting put into the economy isn’t it? Plus, some girls could get discouraged to keep playing the sport because it is so expensive. Paying $40,000 a season is definitely a lot but it makes sense this alone with men will still help the economy.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of your article but no matter what sport is it there will be different view points on how much each athlete should make. Men get paid more because men's hockey or any sports for that matter get broadcast more often.
ReplyDeleteI found your article really interesting. I knew that there was a wage gap between male and female athletes, but I never knew how big this gap actually was. I think that this situation is very much like a monopoly. Men's sports are the ones that are broadcasted the most and they have a monopoly in that industry. Overall, I think that is very unfair, and the government could do something to make sure that monopolies like this don't exist, just like they aren't allowed to exist in the business world.
ReplyDeleteIt is unfortunate that even in our modern society, women still have a more limited career in sports. This, I believe, is largely because male sports are more brodcasted than female sports which means that sports with male athletes have more to spend on their athletes contracts. In addition, male athletes are much more likely to receive endorsements from companies because they're usually much more well known in society. Regardless it is disappointing to see the sizable gap of income between male and female athletes.
ReplyDeleteI found your article very interesting and shocking in a few ways. I was always aware of the wage gap between men and women not only in hockey but in all sports, however I never was truly aware of how large this gap truly is. There is reasoning behind this however and it deals with how men sporting events are broadcasted and viewed more irregardless of the quality of performance. I do find this quite shocking how our government and large broadcasting companies strive to strictly broadcast primarily men sporting events, This is something that should be put to an end and we should strive to bring awareness to this topic and overall awareness to female sporting events in an attempt to minimize this wage gap within sports.
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