In May 2021, when the BCCI announced the revised pay categories in the annual contracts of the players, the gap between women’s earnings as compared to that of their male counterparts came as a shock to many. While the highest-paid male cricketers earned around Rs 7 crore, the highest-paid women earned Rs 50 lakh. The lowest-paid male cricketers earned two times more than what highest-paid women cricketers earned. This begs the question – what makes women’s cricket so different from men’s cricket that leads to such a stark disparity in the paychecks? There are arguments such as, “women in the sport are not as skilled as men”, or “women’s cricket does not compare in terms of viewership”.. The former can be rejected on the grounds of being illogical. However, the latter alludes to a much larger problem. The viewership and marketability of sports are an unnecessary burden on the players. A major chunk of revenue in the sport indeed comes from men’s cricket. The problem arises when this is seen as an excuse for justifying the pay gap instead of an obstacle that has a solution. There are some attainable solutions for this – one of the obstacles in their achievement is a lack of enough effort from administrative bodies like the BCCI. For example, increasing the number of matches scheduled for the women’s team will give more recognition to the female players’ efforts. Marketing the women’s team more effectively, by utilising branding strategies, endorsements, etc, can go a long way in establishing the players as public icons whose journey the general public would be interested in following. Women’s matches must be scheduled in such a way that they donot overlap with the men’s matches. Since men’s cricket already has a considerable and immensely dedicated fan following, these viewers would not think twice about the choice between watching a men’s match and a women’s match. Thus, the women’s matches can be scheduled more during optimum time slots wherein the chances of maximising viewership are the highest. While these efforts would take time to bear fruit, they are essential for giving an impetus to women’s cricket. Increasing visibility and viewership is an effective way to increase the revenue from women’s cricket. The increased revenue, in turn, will lead to parity in wages for women and men. Consequently, cricket will be looked at as a viable career, and an increase in participation from women can be expected. Granted, this will take great efforts at the administrative level. However, it’s time the passion put in by women’s teams in cricket begins to pay off more.
10 Apr 2022
Yukta Patwardhan
