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Tennis is among the long list of sports wherein gender disparity in terms of pay is quite common. And while many stakeholders including certain tennis players themselves, both male and female, have expressed their opinions over the said disparity, substantial changes seem quite far-fetched at the moment.
This greater topic concerning gender disparity in terms of pay recently came to light following Women National Basketball Association (WNBA) player Caitlin Clark's starting salary, something that has surprised a wide range of people including the President and Vice President of the United States, who believe that the pay difference between the NBA and WNBA is a lot more than what it should be.
Clark is set to make $ 76,535 for her rookie year, for a total of $ 338,056 over the next four seasons. Hence, if one compares the same to her NBA counterparts, the difference, although significant, is not necessarily surprising owing to a range of factors including the TV revenue, general following, and ticket pricing.
However, if we extend the discussion to comparisons between the WNBA and lawn tennis, it might seem that female tennis players are luckier compared to the WNBA in terms of the economic aspect. This is also perhaps because tennis, being an individual sport, amongst other things, operates on a performance-based structure where the level a tennis player manages to reach, both in terms of the stage of a particular tournament and their overall career earnings.
Women's Tennis and WNBA: A comparative analysis
If the angle pertaining to the business operations behind a sport forms the crux of the argument, women's tennis has a more dedicated fanbase and engagement than the WNBA.
This in turn impacts factors that are not restricted to the prize money accompanying women's tennis but also the kind of endorsements and publicity that women tennis players end up attracting as opposed to their WNBA counterparts.
If one looks at the prize money earned by WTA World No.1 Iga Swiatek, the amount comes down to an estimated sum of $ 2,620,834 for the year 2024 alone while her net worth is estimated to be around $10 million (via Celebrity Net Worth) with Clark's being around $ 5 million along with $76,535 as her annual salary (via Celebrity Net Worth).
Similarly, in the case of World No.3 Coco Gauff, the 20-year-old's prize money alone for 2024 is around $ 1,269,944 less compared to Swiatek (as the latter stayed ahead in terms of the number of titles earned so far), and yet more compared to what Clark would make the whole year.
Therefore, it might not be completely wrong to say that while the WNBA is based on a standard format of compensating its players, tennis, despite being at an overall edge financially, compensates its players in terms of their performance in a tournament.
'Tennis' side of the story
While it would not be wrong to establish that the prize money accompanying a major tennis event and the overall earnings of a woman tennis player are a lot more than the salary of a WNBA player, the comparison between the two does not exist without a range of nuances.
Tennis, being an expensive sport, demands a lot of money that goes into building a good tennis player including money that is spent on travel, coaching, equipment, and participation fees. While tennis, just like any other sport, demands a lot of investment, the fact that it is an individual sport drawing money from an individual tennis player's bank account, places it at a disadvantage.
As mentioned earlier, tennis players need to play their way up and reach at least the top 200 as per the WTA ranking to make up for the expenditure that comes along with their investment in the sport. However, even after reaching that level, the said expenditure does not decrease as the tennis players continue paying for their travel, equipment, and coaching, the level of which also ascends as the player moves high up the ranks.
Therefore, while spectatorship and sponsorships do make up for a major chunk of any sportsperson's earnings, how they earn what they do and the expenditure that follows a particular sport, make certain comparisons hard.
While in addition to prize money, tennis players can earn a lot off-court owing to endorsements, money that goes into supporting their on-court performance is no less, making the debate between the earnings of women tennis players and the WNBA slightly more nuanced.
Hence, perhaps while there is no denying that a tennis player of Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff's stature might make a lot more than a WNBA player like Caitlin Clark, the intricacies of the business of both sports make it slightly hard to reach a consensus of the said comparison, if one really is possible at all.
