Men and women ride the same events but don’t earn the same prize. Skiing’s most extreme stage is finally making a change.
After years of pay disparity between genders, Freeride World Tour officials have changed the rules. Starting this year, winners will receive equal prize money no matter their gender.
“This is a major step forward to elevate women freeride skiing and snowboarding … Our women athletes have proven their engagement in the sport with huge progression showcased these last years,” said FWT CEO Nicolas Hale-Woods.
Equal Pay in Snowsports
Progress does not mean instant gender equality, though. A BBC study on prize money looked at which sport organizations offer an equal prize for men and women, and which do not. Gaps in pay for professional athletes are more common (and more ridiculous) than you’d think.
For example, for the 2017 ski jumping World Cup, the International Ski Federation (Fédération Internationale de Ski; FIS) paid women 2,415 Euros. Men earned 8,049 Euros — over three times the amount for the same event. For cycling, the UCI paid men double and triple what it paid women in events like the Tour de France, road discipline World Tour, and cyclocross. Similar prize gaps are evident in sports like golf, surfing, and even soccer.
Of course, disparity lies not just in pay, but also in participation. For the first decade of the FWT, women couldn’t even compete in all the competition categories — just snowboard. Now that more women are participating in the sport, organizations are recognizing the need for equal pay and recognition.
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A Deeper Look at Equality in Sports
According to Women in Sport, a U.K. nonprofit advocating for female athletes, women’s sports sponsorship accounted for only 0.4% of total sponsorships between 2011 and 2013. (The figure was roughly the same in 2018.)
And when fewer women are sponsored, there is less recognition. Media coverage of female athletes shows a similar disparity, accounting for only 7% of total sports coverage.
The issue lies not only in equal pay and recognition but in equal promotion of female athletes. In 2018, no women made Forbes’ top list of 100 highest-paid athletes. Zero out of 100. Women are not only being paid less professionally but make less in competitions and earn fewer sponsorships than men.
And sponsorship disparity doesn’t fall on any one sport. If you look at any brand’s roster of sponsored athletes, chances are high that female athletes are far less represented than their male counterparts — in everything from skiing to mountaineering.
We analyzed the rosters of a few major brands and found that the number of male athletes listed outnumbered the women on most.