Gender and Elite Sport – An Unequal Playing Field

In our latest report, our sports sector experts lift the lid on the unequal playing field for male and female athletes in elite sport.

Gender and Elite Sport: An Unequal Playing Field

Insight from sports industry experts

Welcome

Becoming an elite sports professional takes an unbelievable amount of dedication and talent, regardless of sex or gender.

But the path to reaching that level, and the rewards and opportunities that athletes receive as a result, are vastly different between men and women. That’s long been the case.

What are the differences and rewards? Do additional rewards go hand-in-hand with any perceived added responsibility and pressure? Why is it more difficult for female athletes to embark on a career at a professional level and sustain it? How can we bridge the gap? And, importantly, how can both sexes overcome the pitfalls that come with being a professional athlete?

We’ve brought together experts from across the sports sector to tackle this important topic through a roundtable discussion.

Read on to hear the thoughts of:

Heather Lewis, Elite Athlete Lifestyle Coach
Laura Youngson, Co-Founder, IDA Sports and Equal Playing Fields
Lisa Pearce, Chief Executive, British Wheelchair Basketball
Maggie Murphy, CEO, Lewes FC
Nathalie McGloin, Racing Driver
Naomi Findlay, Solicitor and sports expert, Irwin Mitchell
Oli Perkins, UK Market Manager, VEO Technologies
Steve McKay, Director, Protelum Partners
Ted Powell, Solicitor and sports expert, Irwin Mitchell.

I hope you find this summary report useful. If you have any questions, or want to talk about it in more detail, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

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Tom Barnard

Partner and Sports Sector Lead

The commercial difference

The rapid growth that women’s sport has recently seen has been remarkable.

The 2008 Olympic Games saw females account for just 38.5% of participants, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation. But an Open University study shows that this had grown to almost half by the 2021 Games.

And this goes beyond athletics and professional or elite sport. There’s been a huge rise in the number of women’s sports becoming professional over the last decade.

In football, the 2018/19 season represented a watershed moment as the FA Women’s Super League turned pro. Similarly, in 2018, the RFU handed out 15 professional contracts to women, before awarding contracts to every member of the Red Roses in January 2019.

Behind this movement has been a raft of strategy and planning developments to help more girls and women get into sport.

Getting more women into sport

In January 2015, Sport England – the body responsible for growing grassroots sport – launched This Girl Can. The campaign “celebrates active women who are doing their thing no matter how they look, how well they do it, or how sweaty they get.” More recently, it’s launched Uniting The Movement, a 10-year strategic project.

But the increase in female participation and subsequent rise in the professionalism of women’s sport hasn’t been reflected in earnings – particularly when compared to earnings in men’s sport.

Just two female athletes – tennis’ Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams – sit within the top 30 highest-paid global sports stars on the 2021 Forbes list. Despite male footballers accounting for half of the top six, not one female player makes the top 50.

A strive for equality

In 2017, Lewes FC became the world’s first – and currently only – professional and semi-professional football club to treat its male and female athletes exactly the same. They receive the same pay, use the same pitch and training facilities, and the playing budgets for the teams are the same.

The club believes that the move has inspired more young girls to get involved in sport, and hopes it will translate into commercial success by having two lead products (the male and female teams) for businesses to invest in.

Lewes FC CEO Maggie Murphy told the roundtable that there’s still differences between the two teams that runs beyond the club’s funding. She said: “Women end up giving up more to try and make it work.

“Lewes is known for having equal playing budgets for men and women. We put the same amount of money into both pots and then the managers decide how to spend it.

“But with that, men continue to train in the evening, play at weekends, and have other jobs, while our women now train during the day so they can’t take on other jobs. To do that, they’ve had to make football their focus, even though the salaries aren’t huge. It’s really hand-to-mouth.

“The women come from further afield. We have international players who’ve picked up their lives and flown in to Lewes to live hand- to- mouth. Whereas on the men’s side, there’s a composition where half of the team are young players, trying to make it while doing other stuff, and the other half used to play at a higher level and are now retiring.

The pay disparity

“It’s a difficult environment because there’s a limit for how long the women can live like that. They won’t be able to put down a deposit on a house because their salaries are low. So there needs to be a commitment to football and prior thought around how long they can sustain it for.”

Whilst Lewes FC has taken the progressive decision to pay teams equally, there’s still huge disparity between men’s and women’s salaries elsewhere in football.

The average salary for a male Premier League football is around £60,000 a week. In contrast, the average salary for a female football in the Women’s Super League is just £30,000 a year.

Ted Powell raised the recent US women’s national soccer team’s unequal pay claim against US Soccer.

He explained that “this provides an example of the legal issues that governing bodies, and clubs can face in relation to unequal pay and resources.

“In February 2022, US Soccer settled the case for $24 million following almost three years’ of legal proceedings. Governing bodies and clubs should proactively address equality issues, and work with players to resolve issues before they progress into extremely costly and lengthy disputes.”

Ted Powell
Solicitor and sports expert, Irwin Mitchell

However, Steve McKay, a director at Protelum Partners, a management agency for athletes which focuses on wellbeing, pointed out that despite the generous earnings, male footballers still experience financial issues. He said: “an average salary in the Premier League is just over £3 million a year.

Yet 45% of current Premier League players will be declared bankrupt within the first three-years of their retirement. It’s a sobering statistic for people engaged in the biggest entertainment business in the world.”

Making partnerships work

But while Lewes FC is pushing for other clubs to pay athletes equally, opportunities for player sponsorships, giving the athletes a second revenue stream, aren’t necessarily following.

Heather Lewis, a lifestyle advisor to elite athletes spoke about the differences she’s encountered. She said: “a lot of the female athletes I work with are really humble and they put up with a lot.

“Some haven’t been able to get sponsorship deals so they’re having to find money for fuel to even get to training. This is happening even though they’re playing at the same standard as the men, who are getting paid and getting sponsorship deals.

Inequality in sponsorship

“You listen to the stories from the British & Irish Lions rugby team tour, where they’ve spent money on, what could be seen as, non-essential stuff like electric dartboards for the men. It makes you think that the money could’ve been spent on fuel to help a female player get to training. The disparity is ridiculous.

Heather added that one way to address the difference is to call brands out on social media, holding them accountable when they suggest that they support women’s sport, with things like International Women’s Day posts, when they aren’t making a real difference.

This was a view echoed by IDA Sports founder and Equal Playing Field’s Laura Youngson. She added: “most brands don't do anything to help female athletes. They need to sponsor the boring stuff, like sponsoring a club physio – the things that make material differences. We worked with Adidas, who gave us 30 volunteers that we could engage with and educate on women’s sport. They could then take their findings back to the organisation.

“Commitments over a long time work well. The brands know that they’re not going to get a quick return on their investment, so they look at doing things that will transform the system.

“Almost all of the female athletes we work with have another career. We’re starting to see change, but it’s not coming quick enough.”

But when brands do use female athletes, there’s an argument that they’re more demanding than they are with male athletes.

Steve McKay, told the roundtable about his experience with Premier League clients. He noted how those male clients have teams of people around them to manage their affairs, so that the athlete can focus entirely on playing the game. This is in stark contrast to the sponsorship-chasing brand-appeasing that other roundtable members said female athletes have to do.

Motor racing driver Nathalie McGloin spoke of her experience with securing sponsorship. She said: “I can’t afford to race without sponsorship. The task of racing – and of any sport – is to be focused. That’s your job. But as a female athlete, you’re constantly having to think about how you can offer sponsors something different.

“I don’t think men have the same challenge. Men will get sponsored on their results. If they’re good enough, they’re winning races, and they’re showing they can beat the rest of the grid, then that’s enough for the sponsors to sponsor them.

“Women racers have to offer sponsors a story that they can use for content on their channels. You have to get creative with that and it detracts from your ability to focus on the sport.”

Maggie Murphy added: “our sponsors are keen to do the interesting content pieces with the female players, as opposed to the male players. There’s more interest in diversifying the content that sponsors put out.”

“I think brands need to be willing to change. Lyle & Scott came to us and were open in saying that 95% of their range was for men. They wanted to work with us to figure out how to adapt their internal culture and modify some of their product lines.

“While this isn’t public, it shows willingness to change and not just put money behind an activation. I think that’s quite key for us.”

Oli Perkins is UK Market Manager at VEO Technologies – the technology business behind the world’s first portable artificial intelligence that can automatically live stream a game. The business supports female sports through its sponsorships.

Our product is designed to democratise sport at every level, be it gender, age or ability. Supporting women’s teams has gone hand-in-hand with our mission.

Oli Perkins
UK Market Manager, VEO Technologies

Enhancing the women's game

“But I sometimes wonder whether there’s too much PR focus on women’s sport. Are we ticking a box or are we allying with women to further women’s sport as well as our brand?

“We do a lot of work with Lewes FC, and Wasps and Saracens in rugby. We’re seeing an upward trend in viewers and spectators, and we’re really excited by it, but we don’t want to become a brand that’s constantly supporting women’s sport because it’s a tick-box exercise.

“That’s something for brands to recognise. It’s important they’re self-aware when it comes to what they’re putting their money behind and the content they’re putting out.”

There’s also an argument that sports’ governing bodies can do more to support female athletes in their search for better quality commercial partnerships. But to truly enhance the women’s game, they shouldn’t blindly follow the path set in men’s sports.

Lisa Pearce, chief executive at British Wheelchair Basketball, said: “earlier this year, we launched the world’s first professional women’s basketball league and the first professional para-sport league in the UK.

“To take the British women’s team from number two in the world to number one, we realised that we needed to create an all-female environment for them to thrive and build a pathway. Before, like wheelchair rugby, you’d play it co-ed until you got to international level, and then you’d be split into male and female teams.

“You could play professionally in Europe, but again it’s co-ed and only 4% of women represent those teams. This means women would be there to help men, rather than be equitable in a team partnership.

“We realised that we had to create the league for equality, and that allyship is so important.”

The impact of sport on family life

There’s been a shift in awareness around physical wellbeing in sport recently – with concussion becoming a topic of interest. Our roundtable panel looked beyond that to discuss the impact a career in sport can have on family planning – for both male and female athletes – and menstrual cycles.

Raising a family

Nathalie McGoin started the conversation by sharing her experiences from the motor racing industry. She said: “in motorsport, family planning isn’t really discussed with female drivers because once you start to talk about it you lose sponsors – once you’re pregnant, you can’t race.

“I think most females in motorsport see having children as the end of their career because they can’t compete when they’re pregnant – and this is a sweeping statement – because of the risk associated with motorsport. They feel that once they’ve had a child, they can no longer take that risk.

Tackling the taboo

“Men don’t support it. Some women are told by their husbands to stop racing because of the risk. I don’t see these conversations happening with male drivers.

“Family planning in motorsport is a real taboo subject. It’s not something I talk about with my fellow female racing drivers. It’s a real issue, and I think it does need to be addressed.

“Nico Hülkenberg has a very young baby but stood in at a recent F1 grand prix, with Sebastian Vettel having COVID-19. Imagine if it was the opposite way round and the mum was a racing driver? It just wouldn’t happen.

Addressing the responsibility of being a parent

“The only way to fix this is to address the gender disparity in the responsibility of being a parent and an athlete, especially in the dangerous sports.”

In February 2022, the Women’s Super League announced a landmark agreement on maternity leave. Under the agreement, a player taking maternity leave will be paid 100% of her weekly wage, as well as any other remuneration and benefits, for the first 14 weeks before dropping to the statutory rate.

Thomas Barnard explained that “this demonstrates the influence that governing bodies and leagues have over important issues, like family planning and employment rights. Changes in regulations can make a massive difference to the lives of players”.

But, interestingly, Maggie Murphy noted that governing bodies and leagues need to consider the challenges that clubs could face when implementing new rules. After all, the cost of the maternity leave falls to the club, not the governing body or league.

A male dilemma too

While not as evident, male athletes also face problems when it comes to juggling their family lives with their profession. Nathalie added : “it never occurred to me that family planning is an issue for the man.

“I wonder whether the change in this needs to be for women advocating for men, and men advocating for women so that we don’t talk about male and female difference, and instead talk about parenting.”

Oli Perkins shared his observations from the football industry, saying: “in the men's game there’s no paternity leave. There’s no time for the male athletes to have time with the baby. This obviously puts a strain on the mother who has to deal with everything, but also the father who wants to support his wife and baby.

“I just find it quite crazy how there’s no paternity scheme in Premier League football, or the Championship, or anything below that.”

His thoughts were echoed by Irwin Mitchell’s Ted Powell.

It’s interesting how normalised it is in male sport to play the day after the birth of your child. It’s almost applauded, but seems so wrong when you think about it. They should be able to have some extended time to support their family.

Ted Powell
Solicitor and sports expert, Irwin Mitchell

"You're only as good as your last game"

One example of this came in October 2015, when then-Republic of Ireland football manager Roy Keane was asked about whether star striker Robbie Keane would be available to face Germany following the birth of his child. He was quoted in The Guardian as saying: “Yes, why wouldn’t he be? He didn’t have the baby. Unless he’s breastfeeding he should be alright.”

And while it was observed that this issue was largely driven by pressure from clubs, and in this case international sides, Steve McKay of Petrolum Partners pointed out that it’s often the choice of individual players to play. He said that they were all too aware over the competition for their shirt, and the “you’re only as good as your last game” mentality which breeds fear over losing their place in the team.

(Re)location, (re)location, (re)location

The problems of family versus career are also highlighted when it comes to transfers.

Although men’s sport benefits from higher flows of money to players, minimising the pressure of finding the funds to play, there are still big pressures when it comes to chasing contracts.

Steve McKay added: “some male players are on annual contracts at lower levels. With that, how do you plan from a family perspective? You could be living on the south coast one year, and then be signed by a club in the North West. Do you move up? Do you rent? Do you buy? It’s really hard, especially when there are kids involved.”

“Even at Premier League levels, some of the players were coming towards the end of their contracts, and in a strong position to negotiate, when COVID-19 hit. For some, it’s meant dropping a level down, possibly on a fifth of the salary they were on. It’s difficult to manage from a financial and wellbeing perspective.”

The solution could lie with governing bodies. British Wheelchair Basketball’s Lisa Pearce said: “we’ve had members of the men’s team that have had families and we’ve given them two week’s paternity. This gives them time to spend with their families.

“The other thing we’ve worked hard to do is to provide the right environment. We’ve made it so that you can only have a franchise in our women’s professional league if there’s a nursery attached. This gives women the opportunity to have a family and continue in the sport.”

Playing the game

Commitment to supporting women’s sport doesn’t stop with commercial opportunities and club contracts. Our panel found a stark difference in the suitability of equipment for male and female sports players.

Laura Youngson, who founded IDA Sports to give women the same level of tailor-made equipment as men, said: “Women have quite different bodies. I always wore kids boots to play, and this led me to start looking at female design. It’s interesting to see all of the professional equipment not designed for women – you name the sport, we’ve had people contact us about it.

“There’s a belief that there’s no market for it so the brands don’t want to create moulds and do the research. They think women will buy the men’s equipment.

“We’re setting out to show that there is a need for it. When it comes to ACL [anterior cruciate ligament] injuries and things like that, there’s no sports science. We’ve gone about creating it, looking at chronic injuries and acute injuries, and how we can reduce these and their recovery time.

“The next problem is making it commercially viable, but it starts with women. Unlike other brands, we don’t start with the men’s equipment.

“It goes beyond differences between male and female, too. There’s loads of under-served populations. We’ve heard from West African footballers, Pacific Islanders, Japanese futsal players, and more. ”

Racing driver Nathalie McGloin spoke about the impact that ill-suited equipment has on performance in her industry. She said: “in motorsport, kit isn't designed for women.

“When it comes to firesuits, fireproof underwear and boots, you have to get them custom fit because they only have youth and men’s sizes. I always have to get mine made to order, and they’re always wrong.

"I once had a suit come back that had no hips. Even though I’d given them my measurements, it was made like a men’s suit.

“Seats also don't fit women, and race seats are hugely important for stability when driving the car. Most women have to have to buy the largest seat and then have a custom insert made so that it suits their body shape.

Steering wheels are also designed for men. Tatiana Calderón, a F2 racer, struggled when she got to elite-level motorsport because she’s small and her hands didn’t fit around the wheel.

Nathalie McGloin
Racing Driver

Impact of ill-suited equipment

“It's a challenge, and one that we’re hoping to change but we’re not seeing any movement at the moment.”

All of these issues compromise a women’s ability to perform at elite level, or even recreationally. But not having the correct equipment also impacts a player’s mental wellbeing.

Speaking about the social impact women face when it comes to their kit, athlete life advisor Heather Lewis added: “sometimes women don't even get to keep their own kit in rugby. Their male counterparts will have sponsorships and their own kit. But the women wear their shirt, wash it and hand it back.”

But there’s work being done. British Wheelchair Basketball’s Lisa Pearce shared the developments that she’s seeing through her governing body. She said: “both men and women’s basketball wheelchairs are bespoke. In wheelchair basketball, all chairs have to be bespoke because it's dependent on centre of gravity and other attributes linked to the player’s impairments.

“When it came to our kit for British Wheelchair Basketball, we went out to the market to find someone that would work with us to make bespoke kit for men and women, and the range of impairments that our players have.

“We found one. The players then designed the kit, so there was a mental, as well as physical, wellbeing element to it with the pride that they took in wearing it.

But addressing the size of the issue, she added: “there are actually more designs of clothing for dogs in the UK than people with impairments. That’s not acceptable. There are huge markets here and there’s an opportunity to go after these markets. Sport makes this visible.”

Addressing the issues

Here’s the key takeaways that our panel members shared from our roundtable discussion:

Lisa Pearce: “Brands need to be brave and authentic. For broadcasters, visibility would be a game changer. We need more parity across not just the big sports. We don’t need to follow the same direction as men’s sport; we don’t need to repeat their journey. And the recognition of the data that’s out there and the commercial growth potential of women’s sport, and arming our female athletes so they’re in the best position possible when advocating for commercial contracts.”

Heather Lewis: “As someone who spends a lot of time listening to athletes and supporting them, I found it encouraging being with people who are making an impact. I think that giving athletes the confidence and tools to know when to speak up and how. Having people that can advocate for you means you won’t feel so alone.”

Laura Youngson: “Money. In this case, money’s going to solve a lot of problems. Brands need to make medium- to long-term investments that make material differences to the sports. We need to bridge the gap that’s stopping brands coming to the table.”

Nathalie McGloin: “Representation, exposure and role models. All of the intricacies that come with building female sport are useless if you don’t get young females wanting to participate. I would like to see more exposure and celebrating disabled people in able-bodied sport, and women in men’s sport. If that can change, we put in place the building blocks to make everything sustainable.”

Oli Perkins: “It’s the systemic bias towards the “female sports”. At school, if you’re female you play netball, hockey or rounders, when the men are playing cricket. To me, that’s crazy. Women can now earn a professional salary when they play football. There’s not that amount of resource in netball and hockey. That needs to change fairly swiftly.”

Steve McKay: “Don’t follow the men’s game because that’s not the yellow brick road to success. It’s finding a different way of doing it. If I look at our business, we’ve only concentrated on a small target base. I’m going to see how we can use our contacts to make a difference.”

Maggie Murphy: “Brands should check and change their KPIs. Sometimes they’re applied to women’s sport but they’re the wrong KPIs, so we’re always going to fail. I’ve spoken to brands who haven’t sponsored us because our social media following isn’t as big as if they sponsor a women’s team attached to a men’s team, but our fans might have more loyalty.”

Tom Barnard: “Learn from men’s sport and look at where it could have been better. There’s an opportunity to do things differently in women’s sport and learn from mistakes that have been made previously. With women’s football, for example, governing bodies can make sure a bigger share of funding can go to the lower leagues. We’ve seen the issues that prioritisation of premiership and championship creates in men’s football, and there’s a chance to correct the imbalance in women’s sport because the mould isn’t yet set.”

Naomi Findlay: “Having more conversations. I’ve had so many insightful conversations from stakeholders across all areas of sport. By talking, we can change perceptions.”

Ted Powell: “It’s clear that governing bodies, clubs, coaches, sponsors and manufacturers can all, in different ways, grow women’s sport and correct the imbalance. These stakeholders can work together to unlock the full and exciting potential of women’s sport.”