Girls are reaching new heights in basketball, but huge pay gaps await them as professionals

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Corinne M. Daprano, University of Dayton and Leslie H. Picca, University of Dayton

(THE CONVERSATION) Women have made great strides in the world of sports over the past 50 years.

Especially in some individual sports, female champion athletes today earn far more money and command a much bigger audience than their predecessors – thanks to breakthroughs by tennis champions like Billie Jean King and Venus and Serena Williams and top golfers such as Kathy Whitworth, Nancy Lopez and Michele Wie.

We are fans of women’s basketball and scholars who study the role that gender plays in sports and the changing status of female athletes. Despite massive changes in attitudes toward women who excel at sports overall, with few exceptions we’ve observed that the disparity between what adolescent boys and girls can aspire to accomplish in professional basketball today remains enormous.

This gap has become more visible due to the deaths of retired basketball legend Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna and two of the other girls on the basketball team he coached in January.

Known as “Gigi,” the 13-year-old by all accounts inherited not only her former NBA player father’s love of the game, but silky smooth moves as well. She aspired to attend the University of Connecticut where she would play on its highly ranked women’s basketball team. Mourners spoke reverently about Gigi’s intentions to play professionally and carry on her father’s legacy during a star-studded memorial service for both of them held on Feb. 24.

Fears about fertility

Women began playing basketball in 1892, one year after the sport’s emergence.

Women’s basketball started as a passing game...