The problem with women's sports not being as well regarded is a perennial one, and certainly not one that is isolated to developing countries like India and Iran. In a recent article on how the pandemic affected professional women's hockey, the author points out, "Professionally, there isn't a women's league in North America that pays players a living wage. ... From infrastructure to resources to promotion, the stage is far from even."
In a regular year of hockey play, men are put up in 5-star hotels, but women get rooms at 4-star hotels; men get about 50% more free game tickets; men get 50% more locker room space; tournament rules for men calls for 300 journalists to cover the events, but the rules for women state that room need only be made for 100 journalists; championship games for the men are held in major metropolitan areas, while the women's are held in less populated cities; but more importantly, men get prize money, women do not.
This is all the result of organizers claiming that the difference in treatment is the higher level of public interest in men's sports, compared to women's, which drives the media interest. This is really an example of the classic "chicken and egg" problem: women's sports aren't broadcast because they don't seem to draw in viewers but there are no viewers because the women's sports aren't regularly broadcast. Yet, even when so-called equal broadcast opportunities are given, the treatment of female athletes is depressingly uneven.
It was only after one of the women playing in the NCAA March playoffs used social media to point out the severely lacking "weight room" that people started to notice the little things like the fact that when the women's games are broadcast, "March Madness" isn't on the floor of the court -- just "Women's Basketball". When asked about it, all NCAA had to say was "it will continue listening to the expectations of members and women's basketball leadership while considering relations with 'valued broadcast partners'.”
In soccer (or, football as it's known in the rest of the world), the women's national team has won, since 1991, four World Cups and four Olympic gold medals; in the same time period, the men's team has... well... gotten into the quarter finals of a World Cup, once. The highest the men's team has ever reached was 3rd.... in 1930. Yet, the female players are paid much less than the males. Specifically, they're paid 38% of what the men are paid, but for doing a better job. The difference can't be explained in ticket sales: "In 2016, the year after the World Cup, the women generated $1.9 million more than the men." There is some evidence that merchandise featuring the women's team sells better than the men's.
The pay differential is even more evident between the NBA and the WNBA: the men are paid 7 times more than the women. "The average salary of a WNBA player as of 2017 was $75,000, whereas the average NBA salary is $30 million." Comparing the share of revenue between the two organizations, half of the revenue generated in the NBA is paid to the players as salaries; whereas only 20% to 30% of the revenue generated by the WNBA is paid out as salaries to the female players. In order to earn more -- sometimes 10 times more -- a lot of the WNBA players have to play in overseas leagues in the off season, which then limits the time they can spend promoting the sport in the US, leading to the likelihood of men like Draymond Green complaining the women aren't spending enough time (that they don't have) to promote their sport in order to get paid more. What he's basically saying is that women should take the hit in pay in order to spend lots of unpaid time promoting the sport that may pay them more someday.
As someone who growing up hearing that a girl should learn how to cook and clean to make her future husband happy, I say, oh hell no! Paying me more will make me happy.
