So why not women’s professional team sports, with salaries similar to those of men? Male player’s salaries are paid by the teams. Teams get their money from the networks, by selling the television rights to their games. The league negotiates the deals. The national TV networks pay billions of dollars to the leagues because they know they can sell advertising time on the games for even more billions of dollars. The networks are purchasing content that will attract viewers to whom advertisers want to present their ads.
As of this moment, no advertisers are offering to plop down the mega-bucks for time on a women’s sports program, so no network is paying a women’s league the megabucks for TV rights, and no women are getting ridiculous salaries to travel around the country playing team sports. As an advertiser, I’d be loath to spend money for time on any new sport—women’s or men’s—unless I knew there was an audience waiting. As a network, I wouldn’t commit my budget unless I had advertisers lined up.
The only way I can see past this situation is for the fans of women sports to convince networks and advertisers that they are ready to watch women play. Are we? If we’re not, we’ve got no one to blame but ourselves for the absence of women’s sports on TV. If we are, we need to let the networks and advertisers know.
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