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Which sport pays female athletes the most money?

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My project is to learn about why women get payed less and play at worse facilities, my main sports will be in particular basketball and football.

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I might go to an aflw game and see what it’s like.

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I will ask an AFLW player or a WNBL player and ask if they can come to our school and ask questions.

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MARTIN, REPORTER: Yep, I think Australia should be mighty proud of itself when it comes to producing top female athletes and it seems like you guys agree.

KID 1: I like Sam Kerr because she's extremely skilful.

KID 2: I like Sally Pearson because she's just like a really good athlete.

KID 3: I really like Erin Phillips because she's an amazing athlete and I personally find her a huge inspiration for girls and women who wanna start playing sport.

Some new research has shown the popularity of top level women's sports is on the rise and more than half of Australians follow women's sports. That's great news for people like Nicole who's spent her life getting to the top of her game.

NICOLE SEEKAMP, PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALLER: Yeah, I mean I love it. It's so much fun. It's so fun to play in front of a lot of people but like just, obviously having a love for the game and playing it at that kind of level its' competitive and challenging but it's fun

Nicole Seekamp has just played in a WNBL grand final. She also represents her country and has even won a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games. She also helps to train up and coming stars like Emmy who has big ambitions of her own.

EMMY: Yeah. I'd like to hopefully probably do what Nicky has done, play WNBL, hopefully maybe represent Australia one day.

But while becoming an elite athlete is an awesome achievement it doesn't always come with a big pay packet, especially for women. In many sports there are big gaps in the amount that men and women get paid, for example, in the W League, the minimum salary a player can earn this season is $12,200. In the A League for men over 20 it's over $64,000. AFL players earn around $370,000 on average. While average AFLW players earns just $9,700. As for basketball, Nicole says there have been steps to make pay fairer, but women still get less.

NICOLE: Thankfully now for our younger players if you've signed a contract you get a minimum wage. So that's a big step for us. But, still it's not enough to live off so a lot of people do have to get jobs.

Some say low wages are stopping many sportswomen from reaching their potential. That's why recently the heads of 17 Aussie sporting organisations got together to come up with a plan to close the pay gap between men and women. The plans says there's no good reason why, in the future, women shouldn't be paid the same as men, but it'll take effort from lots of areas of sport. For example, making sure girls have the same opportunities as boys to play and train and building the profile of women's sports and women's sports stars in the media so that they attract valuable sponsorship and broadcast deals.

The plan pointed out a few examples of sports that have already managed to lower the pay gap like tennis where men and women receive the same prize money at all major tournaments and cricket Australia which pays both men and women the same hourly base rate. For many it's a positive step.

NICOLE: It probably won't be enough. You know I think it's a good start, but you know there's always going to be something that comes up that needs to get better.

MARTIN, REPORTER: So, it would be good to find out what some young sporting starts have to say. Did you get that? Come on ref that was a foul.

KID: There all doing the same thing, you've just got a different gender, what's the difference?

KID: I would think it's really disturbing to see that people actually think that women should get paid less than men in sports.

KID: I don't think it's enough, I think they definitely should be getting paid the same and it needs to change.

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A plan to try close the pay gap between men and women in some professional sports.

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The Statista "Chart of the Day" currently focuses on two sectors: "Media and Technology", updated daily and featuring the latest statistics from the media, internet, telecommunications and consumer electronics industries; and "Economy and Society", which current data from the United States and around the world relating to economic and political issues as well as sports and entertainment.

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Infographic: The World's Highest-Paid Female Athletes

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This chart shows the female athletes with the highest income in 2022 (in million U.S. dollars).

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Good link about the highest paid female athletes

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Good link about the highest paid female athletes

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Gone are the days of playing for pocket money and hot meals.

Australia's top female athletes are, finally, making some real cash.

Tennis has led the charge by stumping up* equal prize money for both male and female athletes and though few sports are yet to follow suit, the gap is beginning to close.

The LPGA* Tour has upped its game in the remuneration* stakes and some Aussies have been big winners, headlined by world No.3 and 2022 US Open champion Minjee Lee.

Only this month we watched as record paydays were offered to the likes of cricketers Ash Gardner, Beth Mooney and Ellyse Perry at the inaugural* Women's Premier League auction in India and those sudden windfalls* were enough for each to crack our top-20 rich list.

Lucrative* sponsorship deals helped surfing stars Steph Gilmore and Sally Fitzgibbons cash-in last season and with the profile of women's sport continuing to rise, such deals could soon be commonplace.

Some household names* failed to make the cut including superstar swimmer Ariarne Titmus, who boasts top sponsorship deals with Harvey Norman, Nike and Speedo.

However, Titmus should cash-in on her profile ahead of the Paris Olympics and feature near the top of the rich list in coming years.
AUSTRALIAN SPORT'S FEMALE TOP 20 RICH LIST GLOSSARY

stumping up: paying

LPGA: stands for Ladies Professional Golf Association

remuneration: money paid for work or a service

inaugural: first

windfalls: large amounts of money that are received unexpectedly

lucrative: producing a great deal of money or profit

household names: well-known people whose names are recognised by most people

EXTRA READING Cricket star's historic $558k payday The Aussie sport star you should know more about Celebrating our female sporting champs Australia's incredible women of influence QUICK QUIZ

1. Which sport led the charge by introducing equal pay for its male and female athletes?

2. Which female golfer won the 2022 US Open?

3. Name one of the cricketers who picked up big money in the Women's Premier League auction.

4. In which country was the Women's Premier League auction?

5. Ariarne Titmus is a star in which sport?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY
Do you think money is what drives these superstars to excel in their chosen sport?

Would you choose a sport to train in, learn and possibly excel in based on the pay rate?

Which do you think provides more money to these sports stars - prize money or sponsorship deals? Why do you think this?

Time: allow 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Health and Physical education, Critical and creative thinking

2. Extension
Which female sport star on this top 20 rich list do you most admire and why?

What have some of these women achieved that you might like to achieve in the future?

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Personal and social, Critical and creative thinking

Do you know an inspiring female? Maybe you are one, or want to be one?

Share with us who is an inspiring female to you, what they do, and why you think they should be recognised.

Re-read your work aloud to edit and up-level using your VCOP skills before sharing with a classmate.

Complete your work by designing a unique medal of recognition for your inspiring female. (If they are close to you, why don't you share it with them along with your writing?)

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Australia's richest female athletes revealed

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Me and Hugo are going to get some year 3 and 4 girls to play a basketball game and then the week after they will play a footy game, then the next week they will vote on what they want to do footy of basketball.

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Around $39,000

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The maximum capacity at the MCG is 100,024 people.

Vs where the AFLW players play, icon stadium can only hold 12,000 people.

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Action:  Hugo and I ran a basketball game for the year three girls in the hall to encourage girls to play sport and it went well.

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Failed action for week 5 but still learnt

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Failed action for week 5 but still learnt

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Hugo and I tried to host a game of footy for the year 3 girls, but only three people wanted to play which wasn’t enough. so we learnt that girls would rather play basketball more than footy.

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Around 20,000 square meters and 170,000 cubic metres.

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It is around 12,000 square metres, almost half of the mcg.

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Hugo and I went to the AFLW to see what it was like and it was a great experience and I highly recommend going.