In Tessa Spillane’s twelve-year tenure coaching the Wellesley College varsity rowing team, the program has developed from a historic (first women’s collegiate rowing program in the country) but competitively average program, to a national championship-winning team. This shift occurred for several reasons, such as a collective team initiative in 2010 to go to the national championships for the first time, the intensification of the team training plan, and the focus on a healthy team culture. One factor that cannot be dismissed, however, is the amount of additional resources the team has received: a new strength and training coach in the fall of 2013, three new boats donated during the 2014-15 season, and updated equipment like lighter oars and new erg machines. These investments in the program, advocated for by Spillane, have seen significant returns, not just at the national championship, but at regional and conference levels as well. As Wellesley’s team becomes faster, so too do the other Division III teams. The amount of time it takes for a women’s DIII varsity boat to complete a 2,000-meter race, the standard in rowing, is steadily decreasing and approaching times previously thought to be accessible only to Division I or II athletes.

While Wellesley’s rowing team is growing and thriving as a result of these changes, women’s sports, especially team sports, continue to suffer from a lack of investment and support. The US women’s soccer team made headlines in 2016 when their five highest-profile players brought a lawsuit against their governing body for wage discrimination. More recently, the US women’s ice hockey team threatened to boycott the world championships because of inadequate pay and a lack of training and development opportunities. Steph Houghton, the highest-paid female soccer player in the UK, is paid about £65,000 (approx. $80,300) annually, as compared to her male counterpart, Wayne Rooney, who makes £300,000 (approx. $372,500) each year. The tennis star Serena Williams, the highest-ranked player in what is arguably the most equitable sport (tennis, thanks to all four grand-slam events offering the same amount of prize money for both genders), still made less per victory than her male counterpart because of prize money disparities at lower-level competitions.

Many of the arguments in defense of these lopsided numbers are based on the idea that since women’s sports don’t attract the same amount of attention as men’s sports, women don’t deserve to be paid the same. Either the sporting events are not as competitive, which detracts from the entertainment value, or consumers have simply declared their lack of interest.  The proponents of this defense argue for salary based not on the merit of the quality of play, but on the quality of entertainment. Either way, the governing bodies of these sports are requiring the same amount of work from the female players as from the male players when the cameras aren’t rolling. In order to compete at the level required to even contend for a medal at international events such as the Olympics or World Cups, national athletes must train like the athletes they are: professionals. A professional athlete’s schedule and training plan are as time- and energy-intensive as a full-time job, and they should be compensated accordingly, as the men usually are.

There are, in fact, athletes who have been able to successfully balance a non-athletic profession with high-level athletic performance. They are typically individual athletes, however, like the rower Gevvie Stone or the triathlon competitor Gwen Jorgensen; these athletes have total control over their schedules, their choice of coach, and their training plan. Team sport athletes, on the other hand, have much less flexibility. They are held to a strict practice schedule and, in the case of US women’s soccer, are required to compete in at least twenty games during the season, each of which they have to win in order to earn the same amount that the men would earn even if they lost each game. Their governing bodies, such as the US Soccer Federation, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), and the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL), require a level of commitment from their athletes comparable to that of many full-time occupations, and rightly so, but without providing the appropriate compensation to support their employees. These unsustainable standards are particularly problematic for Olympic-level athletes; while individual athletes are selected several months before the Games, team athletes are selected and commit to mandatory training schedules several years ahead of time.

How then do we ensure investment in and support of female athletes in these sports? Notable examples abound, especially outside of the United States. In the United Kingdom, for example, the English women’s cricket team won their first victory in the Ashes competition after a succession of losses, and the England and Wales Cricket Board increased their pay significantly. This investment on the part of the sport’s national governing body enabled the players to be professional cricketers, a change that brought them a larger following. Within the rowing world, one corporate executive, Helen Morrissey of Newton Investment Management, completely shifted the dialogue when she decided to sponsor the Women’s Boat Race, ensuring that it happened on the same day and with the same media coverage as the men’s. A Russian professional basketball team, owned by a billionaire industrialist, paid one of their players, Diana Taurasi, to rest her body and not play for her American team in the WNBA – the difference between what she is paid by the Russian team for a season and what she would have been paid by the WNBA was over a million dollars. In each of these cases, a different investor made the choice to support female athletes by providing capital and resources: a governing body, an external business professional, and a team owner.

Women’s sports are worth the investment, both as jobs for women who deserve to earn a living wage for the remarkable work they do, and as a product that generates consistent returns. Governing bodies and the organizers of competitions hide behind the excuses that female athletes “aren’t as competitive” or that women’s sports are a “vicious cycle” in which there is no interest from the public to drive investment, but interest from the public can only be generated through investment. Demonstrated in sports varying from cricket to basketball to rowing, there are plenty of ways outside of traditional entertainment practices to invest in and support women’s sports, which will generate the consistent, positive return that both athletes and their fans deserve.