Professional women cyclists deserve a minimum wage
According to an article by Rupert Guinness on smh.com.au the average salary for professional female cyclists “is understood to be €20,000, and about 20 per cent race for free”.
It’s a pity that the UCI President was so dismissive and unsupportive of the women’s sport. If you want to know more, read Rupert’s article here. Thanks again Rupert for covering women’s professional cycling.
Would be interesting to know the average professional male cyclists salary as a comparison. Any ideas? I would think that the top-end men earn more than the top-end women…….but not sure if the averages would be too different.
This is a real tough one. Considering that the pro women race just as hard as the pro men, naturally they should get paid the same, or at least have a base salary. In professional cycling the sponsors pay the teams for the marketing rights on the rider’s jerseys knowing that the teams will gain them exposure in the biggest races. Men’s races ranging from the Tour Down Under, Spring Classics and of course the Tour de France are exponentially more valuable than the marketing exposure offered by any number of women’s races. And therein lies the rub.
It’s an awful truth because as big a fan of women’s racing that I am, it’s next to impossible to find any print coverage let alone live video coverage for a pro women’s race. Why is there no coverage? Because for any number of valid reasons, the demand just isn’t there.
That being the case, Pat McQuaid is correct in that women’s racing does not have the financial backing from the commercial sponsors to support the peloton in as meaningful way as we would all like with minimally compensated women. At least on their own.
If some of the ideas actually get implemented where ProTour teams must run a simultaneous women’s team and some of the WorldTour races hold a women’s event as a lead-in to the men’s race, then perhaps it might work but even so, the implementation factor is entirely dependent on the men subsidizing and supporting the women rather than the women’s events and teams being self-supported.