5 Key Stats From Women in the Pinkbike State of the Sport Survey 2024

Apr 3, 2024
by Alicia Leggett  
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Welcome to the 2024 Pinkbike State of the Sport Survey. This anonymous survey is designed to highlight key issues and riders' perspectives on the sport that we, pro riders, and Pinkbike readers all love so much. We surveyed the best riders in the world to hear their thoughts, ideas, concerns, and criticisms on mountain biking in 2024. Now, we're breaking down what we've learned. We're now publishing a series of articles that break down sections of the results, and you'll see the results in full shortly. This year, we introduced the public survey, which will help gauge public views on the sport and should make for some interesting comparisons to what the racers say. Stay tuned for that. To read the introduction to the survey click here, and to see all the other currently published SOTS articles click here.



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We know all too well that mountain biking is a male-dominated sport, but that's shifting over the years. We've noticed that from our experiences, as we've seen an increasing number of women on the trails and we women have felt less tokenized over time, and we can also see that in the numbers: In this survey's first edition in 2021, 39% of the respondents were women. That increased to 41% last year and 45.4% of this year's 108 respondents.



Female Pros Say There's a Pay Gap & They're Right

We asked women in the sport whether they think there's a pay for professional female vs. male riders.


More than half the women surveyed - 55.1% - responded "strongly agree" to the statement "there is a gender pay gap in mountain biking." Another 34.7% responded "agree,: putting the total agree answers at 89.8%. Another 6.1% were neutral, 4.1% disagreed, and no one strongly disagreed. The detail I noticed about these figures is that they've increased this year, up from a total of 83.1% agreeing or strongly agreeing in both 2021 and 2023. What do we make of that? I honestly don't know. Does that mean that the industry is getting worse or that people are becoming more aware of its shortcomings? I think the latter, especially in the context of last year's organizational changes that put the spotlight on rider dissatisfaction, but it's fascinating to see at a time when we've all convinced ourselves that we're helping to move the sport in the right direction.

And - surprise, surprise - the numbers agree that there is a real pay gap.


The chart above shows what the riders told us they make. Women tended to answer that they made less than men in 2023. The biggest difference appears to show that it's harder for women to break into the top financial tiers: our one respondent making more than $500k is male, and those making more than $100k are also predominantly men. That said, it's not all grim news here about the pay gap. In 2021, our first survey year, men out-earned women at the $50k - $100k tier, too, while now enough women have joined that group that they're equal.

But even though the riders feel there's a gender pay gap and the numbers can back that up, there wasn't a clear consensus on what that pay gap might be. (Indicative of how little that's talked about? We hope this survey helps give riders a bit more understanding of their worth in the context of the industry.)

I do want to say that I think the lack of clear consensus was partly because of a survey design flaw. At least, I'll call it sort of a flaw. We asked a numerical how much question with a short answer text box for responders and no specified units or structure, so of course the answers came in all over the place. Some fractions, some paragraphs, some percentages, some monetary figures in several currencies. Fascinating, but hard to group together. Below are some selected responses to "If yes, how much less do you think you might be paid than an equivalent male rider?" Please interpret them how you will.

bigquotes50% of the salary.

bigquotes200000.

bigquotesI personally think that gender should be taken out of contract and pay. A lot of male riders get paid more than females because they are more valuable at the end of the day. They have bigger following and they have more marketability and they sell more bikes. The women that sell more than men get paid more than those men.

bigquotes£10,000 give or take.

bigquotesA third to half as much.

bigquotesAround 50,000 dollars to my counterpart male teammate.

bigquotesHalf the money the male teammates get, not only the salary is half the amount but also the prize money.

bigquotesI think -100.

bigquotes1/3.

bigquotesAs the highest paid female rider on my team (still not paid much at all) compare to the highest paid male rider I make about 60% of his salary.

bigquotesMinimum 20,000€ less a year.

bigquotes60k less.



Women Say They've Experienced Sexism in the Industry, But Not Everyone Agrees

Beyond the numerical breakdown of pay, we also asked about their more subjective experiences. The majority of women who responded said they've experienced sexism in their careers: 65.3% responded "agree" or "strongly agree" to "I have experienced sexism in the sport of mountain biking during my career." Still, that's slightly fewer than I'd have expected and maybe slightly more promising than in previous years. In 2021, a similar 63.7% responded affirmatively, but were more skewed toward "strongly agree." When asked whether they've experienced sexism in the last year, that number dropped to 48.6%, suggesting either that those experiences of sexism are relatively few and far between or that things are improving nowadays. It's an admittedly small win, but I'll take it.




Women Overwhelmingly Want To Race the Same Courses As Men

What might be the most widely-shared opinion in the survey responses is that the course should be the same for racers regardless of gender. 93.9% of respondents said they "agree" or "strongly agree" with "the course should be the same for all riders irrespective of gender," and another 4.1% responded neutrally, leaving 2% to disagree. (That's a single rider out of our 49 women.)

Year over year, that's a bit of an increase from our first survey year, when 86.7% of women said they wanted to race the same course as the men, with another 10.5% neutral then. What's changing? The individuals surveyed have shifted, of course, but attitudes seem to be changing too. Maybe more toward seeing women's capability and wanting to give them the stage for showing what they can do, maybe just through random chance, maybe a combination of those and other factors.

I think experience, too, has something to do with that change: In 2021, we were just starting to see some women's events emerge at a large scale but a grassroots organization level. Now, those events have been around a little longer, we've been watching women throw down on huge jumps for years, women are racing Hardline, and it's just a different atmosphere, a totally different snapshot of what women can do at the top of the sport. The momentum here seems hard to stop. As women progress, they'll want more opportunities, and those opportunities will continue to create the venues for progression.




Most Women Would Support Legislation to Diversity Teams

Ideas on how to diversity teams have ranged all over the place, and one idea that's floated around for a while is requiring UCI trade teams to include female and/or junior riders. Such legislation would make it harder for teams to focus solely on the established (male, adult) riders and could help narrow the pay gap in the future, putting women on more equal ground to their male counterparts.

The majority of women agreed with the statement "I would support legislation to diversify the professional field. (I.e. an elite UCI trade team must have at least 2 of the following: a male, a female and a junior)" responding either "strongly agree" (24.5%) or "agree" (44.9%), with another 20.4% responding neutrally. Opinions on this topic seem hesitantly positive, with 10.2% in the "disagree" or "strongly disagree" camp, likely because there's no way of predicting the inevitable side effects of such legislation. There's also an argument to be made against the enactment of new rules at a time when World Cup organization is already in upheaval thanks to issues like the Warner Bros. takeover and financial turmoil throughout the industry.

There's also the question of simple principle: Should the bike world have more rules or more personal (/team/brand/whatever) freedom? It's tough to sign up for more rules when so many teams are already expressing themselves exactly how they want to, but there's also room for improvement, and we've seen some teams make such changes in recent years while staying true to their vibes. (Nina seems to fit in just fine with the Syndicate.)




How can we make the sport more inclusive?

And then there's the big question at the heart of all of this: How can we make the sport better for everyone? Below are selected responses to the question "What changes would you like to see in mountain biking to make it more inclusive for women?" Note that I didn't include all the responses - I left out any that felt especially minimal or echoed other responses - but the common threads are that women riders want more pay, more transparency around pay, female riders on teams, larger competitive fields, better race practice times, and more media coverage.

bigquotesIncreasing the value of having women on factory teams.

bigquotesLarger field sizes. Requirements to have equal gender numbers on a team.

bigquotesMore numbers racing and inclusion within publicity and hype to the riders.

bigquotesNot so early start time. Same salary.

bigquotesA minimum salary for everyone, man and woman equal, and to speak more open about salary in general.

bigquotesMore development opportunities, more women making the decisions.

bigquotesLess talk around how we look. Less talk about how we 'also train hard.' Less shitty race start times (like Saturday evening at some smaller races, or 8.30 in the morning for U23 women WCs).

bigquotesMore exposure in the media channels, more equality in salaries, more women in key jobs in the industry - team managers, mechanics, physio... a bit more transparency about rider and staff salaries.

bigquotesMinimum wage for riders (M+F) in Elite teams and obligation to have a female athlete in every Elite team.

bigquotesCompulsory woman on every team, minimum salary cap, equal coverage.

bigquotesMore than 10 in finals…..20 minimum! Less females are on teams so more of them are privateers so making it more inclusive for privateers in terms of available pit space at a reasonable price and larger numbers in finals will help develop the women’s field.

bigquotesFair salary, Fair training hours schedule at World Cup. Having our own style and not trying to copy men.

bigquotesIt's happening. Inclusion + opportunity and you see women rise to the table i.e. Hardline. Continue to market women as good strong riders and not just as "women riders."


Author Info:
alicialeggett avatar

Member since Jun 19, 2015
743 articles

204 Comments
  • 315 24
 I used to be skeptical of the concept of "representation matters." But over time I've come to realize that's largely because I'm a white man, and I've always had plenty of role models to choose from.

It was watching my daughter that made me change my perspective.

The first superhero movie she ever cared about was Wonder Woman. The most engaged I've ever seen her in a football game (pre Taylor Swift) was one of the first to have a woman reffing.

It's easier to envision our ourselves doing something when it's being done by people who look like us.

I volunteer as a coach for our local middle-and-high-school MTB team.

I can't explain how hyped my "too-young-to-join-the-team" daughter was the weekend we went to a race, and girls from our team swept nearly every category they entered.

Suddenly it wasn't just, "my dad wants to drag me out on mountain bike rides." It was, "I'm gonna be a girl on this team next year, and girls on this team win mountain bike races!"

Just about a third of our team's riders are girls this season, a new high water mark for us. I don't think we'd be there without past years of girls on our team who were fast riders, but I also don't think we'd be there without Rachel Atherton, Jill Kintner, Nina Hoffman and hundreds of other women pros for the girls on our team to look up to.

I also don't think we'd be there if we hadn't recruited a good number of women to ride on our coaching staff.

Which is all to say, if I was a MTB brand trying to stand out with my sponsorship dollars, I'd make a big f'ing deal about sponsoring women. Not just because it's the right thing to do, but because "attracting women to your brand" probably represents the biggest untapped opportunity in mountain biking.

Also, if you need a little good news to counteract the bummer of "women riders get paid less," I'll quote one of the older girls on our youth MTB team. They were discussing the best way to get a discount on bikes, and she said, "Oh, just tell 'em your a girl racing NICA. EVERYBODY wants to support girls racing mountain bikes."

I hope she's right.
  • 26 0
 All very good points here too. My daughter gets so hyped seeing local ladies succeed. It also does seem that there are a lot of people doing a lot of things to encourage more girls to be on bikes.
  • 47 188
flag nvranka (Apr 3, 2024 at 11:36) (Below Threshold)
 Stopped at ‘because I’m a white man’

Big yikes
  • 59 4
 @nvranka: Keep reading
  • 21 138
flag nvranka (Apr 3, 2024 at 11:56) (Below Threshold)
 @DizzyNinja: nah, my mistake was coming to this article to begin with.
  • 12 0
 I finished my last NICA season last year, and have definitely noticed an increase of girls riding. The league has been great with incorporating it, with girls' rides on the preride days.
  • 43 16
 @nvranka: Oh, poor baby! Got his feelings hurt!
  • 97 4
 @nvranka: What I mean is, representation didn't matter to me because I always had it.

It's sort of like how I don't really value "clean drinking water" until I'm out on mile 20 in a scorcher, holding an empty water bottle and looking at a stream.

Whether I wanted to be president, or a CEO, or a doctor or an extreme athlete, or a football player or a CIA agent or a fireman or basically whatever, I always had plenty of people who looked like me in those roles I could look up to.

I was skeptical of the value of "having people who look like you to look up to" because I've never really NOT had that.

If you're still skeptical of that concept, tale a look at the reaction every time Hollywood considers recasting a beloved character as a different race or gender.

Think of the response that happens every time there's a rumor the next James Bond might be played by someone not white, or not a man?

There's a huge outcry every time.

I don't think (most of) the people who raise those loud objections are deeply racist or sexist. I expect most of them identify with a James Bond who looks like a (much handsomer) version of them, and would be sad to lose that.

Once you realize the value of having role models that look like you (not to suggest that James Bond should be anybody's role model), it seems reasonable that you might want to help other people who look differently than you have that same sort of opportunity.
  • 7 0
 My daughter last raced NICA (WI) 6 years ago, there were plenty of girls and I think the girls field grown a bit more since then. Sadly, my daughter put the bike away to focus on college. She still enjoys going out on a ride with me, but her racing was my dream, not hers. That said, 25 years ago, I would see maybe one female on trail 2 or 3 times a season (100 -125 rides). Now, 2-3 females on one ride is a low average at a trail. It's definitely up
  • 19 0
 I'm watching Transition's team with great interest this season. They are clearly backing the young women in racing, and I expect in the next few years we will see those riders become very successful. Its neat what Transition is doing, but as you said, maybe they could be making a big f'ing deal about it in marketing. But I suppose quietly going about their business is kinda cool too.
  • 19 4
 I hate statistics, so many ways to bend them to your desire. As far as why men might get paid more is that there are more men in the sport, so the thought is a pro male rider will influence a larger percentage of people to buy there stuff, because for the most part men don’t ask, what is she riding, I want to ride like that (it’s starting and growing, but not quite there)

The other side of the argument is that there is more room for growth in the female market. Instead of a pro woman convincing someone to switch brands, there is a higher likelihood that she’ll convince someone to start riding and that’s an even bigger win for the industry. There are a lot of little boys at races that watch and get hooked. With the right female representation there is a chance to grow the sport!

In the last 15 years at my local DH circuit I have seen it grow from 18 women total to 18 Jr Ex women and at least 100 females total. Let’s also not forget we are only talking binary here, leaving a growing segment out altogether.

Bottom line, if you want a change, make a change, volunteer to coach females, sponsor a female athlete, or the easiest thing, cheer them on! I can’t tell you how sad it makes me when people start heading down the hill when the males are done instead of cheering on the females. So stay and cheer and convince others to stay too!
  • 11 1
 As a father of two daughters this made me smile
  • 12 2
 You can’t be what you can’t see...
  • 16 1
 The MTB industry and @nvranka needs to realize this: "(...) "attracting women to your brand" probably represents the biggest untapped opportunity in mountain biking."
  • 10 1
 This guy gets it. Thanks for sharing.
  • 2 2
 @atourgates: Agreed. I had a similar experience to yours, where for a long time, I was a part of the "representation doesn't matter" crowd. But then I observed the effect of the intense "diversity" efforts in popular media is having on, in particular, young white straight men and boys, but even to some extent, other "majority" segments as well. Young men and boys are just tuning out of popular media and congregating in spaces online and in video games where they can still find some vestiges of media that better represents their interests. To some extent, we even see this with girls, where as popular media increasingly caters away from traditionally attractive beauty standards, those standards have just moved online and young girls are flocking to it. Even for me, I find that more and more, popular media (particularly streaming) isn't really made "for" me, and I can't really relate to it.
  • 2 0
 As an American English speaker, I would not use 'Diversity' in this way "Most Women Would Support Legislation to 'Diversity' Teams & Ideas on how to 'diversity' teams have ranged all over the place".

Did you mean 'Diversify'? Teach that AI....
  • 1 0
 @Pacifically: that’s not true. Someone has to be the first. Trail blazer’s don’t need to see, they just do. And we should all be grateful they showed us a different way of doing things.
  • 1 0
 @Pacifically: But we're all just like...made up of these particles mannnn.

JK jk jk, not trying to take away from your point. 100% on the money.
  • 132 14
 "The women that sell more than men get paid more than those men."

The person that said that is the most correct. It's not so much that anyone is specifically choosing to pay mountain biking women less, it's that most women currently bring their brands less revenue (by whatever wild metrics they use for measuring this) than most men, and many companies in this industry are choosing to determine pay based on that.

It's very different than, say, a software development job, or a line cook, or a pharmacy technician, where men and women in a given position are expected to create the same output and thus create the same value, and thus they should be paid exactly the same.
  • 30 12
 Is that first statement true? I hear similar from various sources but no actual figures to show it. In general, companies pay what they can get away with and call it benchmarking.
  • 1 0
 @kevinturner12: I feel like it is to an extent. There isn't a real way to prove that a certain rider helps sell more bikes, save for before and after charts (which don't exactly show the whole truth) and people saying "I bought a Santa Cruz because Goldstone. So, companies do definitely pay riders based on how much exposure/interest they bring, but it isn't 100% of the pay gap.
  • 3 1
 @meata: I think it must have some influence but more within women's or men's teams. A high profile woman will earn more than one with a lower profile. Men and women are not competing for spots on the same team so why would their pay be linked?
  • 7 2
 Also they are comparing themselves in some of the comments to the top paid male athlete on the team, that could mean a lot of things depending on who that was and who they are. If you are a woman rider that is on bubble comparing yourself to a male rider who podiums every race, then it's not a very good comparison. That may not be the case but this survey certainly doesn't provide that detail either. If the male racing or racers bring more revenue, then they should be paid relative to that value regardless of how the company determines what that value is. If they bring the same value, then different story.
  • 5 0
 You might not be able to determine how many bikes a rider helps sell but if you use some combination of;
High level race wins, social media following and high profile video edits you likely can determine market value in relation to another rider. Personality and sadly for women, looks probably also play a part.
If you are winning world cups/world Champs have 150k+ following on insta and your own edits on redbull you should and likely are getting paid more than some men
  • 11 3
 @kevinturner12: say you’re a very sexist marketing manager for a bike company, and you realize you can make $20 for every $1 you spend on a woman vs making $20 for every $2 you spend on a man. Aren’t you going to go “hey we should absolutely capitalize on this cheap labor and gain a higher ROI” and hire more women than men?

Or could it just be that MTB as a sport is more interesting to men than women? Or that it is dominated by male athletes because their higher absolute levels of performance tend to be more exciting to watch and therefore they tend to sell more stuff?
  • 2 0
 You know what helps women sell more? More exposure. If only ten women are in the WC downhill finals, only 10 women get that exposure. So it's not helpful to the women who typically finish in 11-20 that they can't get that exposure and grown their name recognition.
  • 1 0
 @Fill-Freakin: but even the top 10 are of questionable marketable value relative to their expense (not just their salary but the cost of flying them around the world, the rest of the team, the gear etc), so what is expanding that to even less marketable riders going to achieve?
  • 1 0
 @hg604: Really, it's a lack of vision by marketing departments. They need to market their athletes to women, and they have to find what works for that audience. It won't be the same triggers as what works for men. Also, those athletes need agents that will use them for marketing other things than bikes. Of course, that's true on the men's side as well.
  • 2 0
 @hg604: Also, those expenses you list are already there. There already are more than 20 female riders that are paying or paid to be there (WC DH) - so why not give them the exposure by holding a final with 20 riders? It makes the investment in them more worthwhile.
  • 1 0
 @Fill-Freakin: fair points. I’d love to see a day where the female riders are equally valuable in their marketability and therefore make as much as the men, but not sure how (or if) the industry can ever get to that point. And when there’s so few people getting paid any liveable amount in the first place I also wonder if there’s space in the budget for that total sum of money to be spread any thinner without actually capsizing the entire boat and massively upsetting professional racing as a whole too.
  • 52 6
 women been pushing and achieving a lot in this sport in last few years. Ladies at the parks I go shred like crazy and eager to develop their skills. MTB women groups are popping up like mushrooms in my home town and there is no lack of participants.

But as far as Pro sport goes - it's all about views. Can't get equal salary if there is 10 times less people watching you riding.

Is there any successful female sport with huge viewership and equal salaries? And I mean one that doesn't include tight closes and skin exposed. Are women even watching sports? As much as I would like to I do not see how female athletes can be paid same unless it's forced somehow
  • 12 0
 I think tennis is the closest.
  • 9 0
 @kevinturner12: Surfing has also implemented equal pay for women starting a few years ago, even though the viewership numbers are dramatically lower for the days that only women are competing.
  • 9 0
 Volleyball. I used to watch every Women's game religiously and most Men's games. Prize pay has been equal since 2004.
  • 43 15
 Thank you for bringing up this argument. It is a classic example of a false equivalency and we should discuss how it is a commonly held belief that is objectively flawed.

Women's sports can in fact draw a similar viewership to men's sports given they are advertised and marketed the same amount, and the players are supported the same amount.

Arguing that women's sports should be paid less until they make the same amount as men's sports is the same as saying an slower F1 team should have to race with a smaller engine until they are as fast as the top teams... It logically makes zero sense as the engine itself is what gets you the top speed.

Marketing and funding is the engine of sports. Pay the players more, hype up the games more, and you get more profit.

16.1 million people tuned into the Women's collegiate basketball championship. The men's championship drew 15.1 million viewers.

The reason is largely because the Women's games were advertised similarly to the men's. This also goes to show that the peak of performance comparatively between men and women is irrelevant. People tune in to watch the groups actually competing against each other compete.

In mountain biking, the argument that women don't ride as fast or jump as high as the men is silly... the women aren't racing the men... they're racing each other. If the competition is tight (which is a result of being well funded and having a deep field) it will be good racing.
  • 7 0
 @kevinturner12: tennis has also done a fantastic job over the years of making sure to promote both sexes equally. All the major tournaments give approximately equal TV time and coverage does a great job getting just as excited about milestones or major victories for the ladies and men.
  • 7 0
 @mtmc99: I think it shows that equality doesn't just happen. It's a pity I hate tennis.
  • 5 0
 @valrock: Any idea how much Caitlin Clark gets paid, or Angel Reese? The viewership numbers those games are putting up are insane.
  • 6 0
 @Planetx888: That last LSU-Iowa rematch attracted 16.1 million viewers.

That's the 2nd most for any basketball game on ESPN in 20 years...college or pro.
  • 7 3
 Ronda Rousey has been UFC's best paid, male or female. Here's her views when asked about pay gap on other sports.
I'll leave this here, Ronda Rousey from UFC on pay gap. I fully agree.
youtu.be/Jn_5HQ1AJi4?si=r441lGM2GQYUW0TK
  • 10 35
flag nvranka (Apr 3, 2024 at 15:09) (Below Threshold)
 @ridedigrepeat: wtf are you saying lol?

The level of riding is completely different between the women and the men. There’s often a 45+ second gap ffs…women have zero style, zero aggression.

I can’t speak to how we would interpret their riding if we had never seen the elite men’s’ counterpart, but let’s be real.

People want to watch the best in the world. If the women were faster / better, people would tune in.

Not much to do with advertising hahah…in fact if you over advertise the women in today’s climate it mostly just looks worse.

I liked how the latest hardline event treated it. Support the ladies, don’t make a big deal out of it, don’t overly pressure them to progress any faster than they should, and leave it at that.

I don’t see a reality where the two sexes can be paid the same in sports where one excels over the other. I just don’t see how that could or would ever make sense.

Glass half full, the ladies have MUCH less competition.

Idk…you can’t go into these sports for the money. If you want money, go into consulting of some kind and ride for fun.
  • 3 0
 @Planetx888: According to the internet Caitlin Clark makes $3.1 million per year and Angel Reese makes $1.8 million
  • 5 1
 @ridedigrepeat: That is an interesting stat about the collegiate basketball, I didn't know that they'd not just reached parity for viewership, but passed it. Hopefully that will carry through to the WNBA as those same players graduate to the pro ranks.

I think your argument makes some very strong points, but I would just like to point out that MTB sits in a sort of middle ground between:
1.The traditional big spectator sports
and 2. The alternative outdoorsy extreme (often solitary) sports

Interest in the first category is largely driven by viewers allegiances to a team, the stories behind the players, the competition between players, etc... even if the gameplay is not necessarily breaking new ground. Interest in the second category is more driven by seeing people doing jaw dropping feats. For example, there was a sick base jumping video posted here on Pinkbike. I knew know little about the sport, and nothing about the guy in the vid, but even still, I was compelled to watch the vid which I found thrilling. College hoops, by comparison, doesn't have that same intrinsically compelling nature unless you are really invested in it as a fan.

My point is that MTB is somewhat in the middle. So for fans of spectating XC, for example, it could be just as thrilling to watch men's and women's races if you're invested in the stories of the racers, and marketing and exposure could conceivably bring them up to popularity (and therefore salary) parity with men, as has apparently happened with college basketball. But for fans of the vids like Danny Mac or Semenuk are producing, or even vids of really transcendent DH race runs that are equally jaw dropping (even putting aside the time comparison to other racers and race results) there aren't the same volume of women putting out that content. I really dig Vero Sandler's edits, and a few other ladies, but I could count them on 1 hand, vs. a couple dozen men who are producing content of that level. Interest in and viewership of that content is a large large part of what's driving the salaries I think. Like, even mid pack pro male racers/riders are making videos of trying to jump over or off of their houses and whatnot.
  • 2 0
 Yeah, cuz Caitlin Clark was drilling 3’s for half the scoreboard. Thats why.
  • 1 0
 Netball comes to mind - but overall it's a very limited audience etc...
  • 3 1
 @thekaiser: Women haven't been given the platforms to progress like men have, so the content similarly hasn't kept up...

Just wait and see what women are putting out for edits in 5 years now that they have a slopestyle comp and (fingers crossed) will have a spot to compete in Rampage this year.

It takes investment in the sport to foster talent.

Semenuk wouldn't be where he is if there was no men's slopestyle and rampage. He would have likely found a different sport that actually cared...

There are tons of amazing women rider's we'll never get to see because the industry didn't invest in them and they went off to other sports or careers.
  • 31 5
 There seem to be a lot of people that are passionate about this topic so let me share some additional info.
Looking at the views of the Semi-Finals at Leogang and Lenzerheide that were streamed separately for men and women on the GMBN Racing channel on Youtube you can see the mens competition generated almost 6 times the views(33.250 combined for the women; 194.500 combined for the men). While this comparison is just a rough estimate and has little to do with the actual streaming views during Finals, it does show that for now women are being watched less than their male competitors.

Secondly, when comparing the instagram following of the top 5 overall riders in the three main categories dh, enduro, xc the Men average 196.500 followers while women average 63.800 followers(shoot me a message if you want the entire list). This again shows that women have a smaller reach and therefore not as good of an advertisement as their male counterparts.

As always, things aren't black or white, and there are multiple viewpoints to this topic. While most riders see the viewpoint of a female rider, who is working just as hard as their male competitors but doesn't get paid as much, what about a team manager/bike brand with a tight budget? Sure, athletes need to eat, but so do employees at bike companies. Looking at how the bike market has plummeted this past year, signing riders at a salary that isn't defined by their output and profit seems ridiculous.

Lastly, feel free to disagree, but I am borderline shocked by some of the suggestion of the women "Requirements to have equal gender numbers on a team", if I interpret this correctly and this person is implying a rule for teams to have the same amount of male and female riders then how the hell are you gonna accomplish that when you have 4-5 times the amount of male riders compared to female riders. Implementing these rules would kill half of all UCI Teams, in which case nobody wins.

Apologies for any misspells/errors.
Have a good night/day dependent on where you live.
  • 8 2
 I'm going to play devil's advocate here, but it could be that although the women's races have fewer views they might have a higher ratio of hardcore to casual viewers. In the UK Liverpool Vs Manchester city would attract more viewers than Coventry Vs Barnsley but almost everyone watching Coventry would buy a replica shirt.
  • 11 1
 “While most riders see the viewpoint of a female rider, who is working just as hard as their male competitors but doesn't get paid as much…”

Yeah but I could work harder than any of them and I’d still lose every DH race (vs fastest rider of the day) by a minute too. I’m just not wired to be a high level athlete, not sure if it’s genetic or environmental or due to the opportunities I had growing up. Does that mean that I should be able to work my ass off and get paid the same as Loic Bruni just because I tried as hard as him, even though I would never come close to his performance and never sell a single bike? Or is that just not the reason sponsors pay athletes?
  • 10 1
 @hg604: No, that’s exactly what I‘m trying to say here. The harsh truth is companies don’t care how much you work. If you have insane media coverage and social media following you gonna get paid more no matter if you work and train 5 or 80 hours a week. Sponsored athletes are advertisement (and in some cases a help when developing new bikes) so athletes that have more to offer in that regard are gonna be paid more, independent of gender.
  • 1 0
 @kevinturner12: The ratio will most likely be higher, but there will still be a significantly smaller amount of hardcore watchers at the women wc compared to the men wc. I know way more people that exclusively watch the men’s race that people that exclusively watch the women's race. This is just a wild guess, but I would think that most people start watching the men‘s race and at some point when they‘re really invested in the sport, start also watching the women‘s race.
  • 1 0
 @hg604: Agree. Im quite sure in reality everyone in the top 50 are working as hard as each other to get 'better' sure those at the top might be getitng more help to get better, eg coaches, diet advice etc but they are all working hard. But then the delivery driver at my work also works as hard as anyone else but doesnt get the same pay as I do
  • 5 2
 Having a quota for equal numbers in any industry/sport is a bad idea - let people do what they want to do. I enjoy watching women's DH racing and have done for years but surely men will always dominate dangerous and extreme sports.

Companies have to be able to survive in a capitalist meritocracy and if the numbers/revenue don't stack up then it isn't going to last. The company will either go under, or have to fund it through other methods.

We all want women to be supported in the sport and to have the same opportunities as men. I like seeing more women in mtb, particularly at the more extreme end, but it has to be able to work in the real world.
  • 2 0
 @BikeMatthias: I agree, I'm just saying that looking at the overall numbers might not tell the whole story.
  • 1 0
 @BikeMatthias: why train 80 if you can train 5 and get paid the same?
  • 3 3
 This is basically everything I was thinking reading this article. I love that women are becoming more involved in the sport but the fact is, they don't bring in as much revenue as men, so why should they get paid the same amount as men? That's how it is in pretty much any sport, men get paid more because more people watch men. And at the same time, teams shouldn't be forced to have equal male and female riders unless UCI is trying to destroy the sport (which isn't entirely impossible at this point). There are simply more male athletes than women athletes, teams would either not be able to find female riders or they wouldn't be able to afford it.
  • 2 0
 @kevinturner12: For sure not the entire story, but I'd say it's enough to draw the conclusion that the men's competition is watched more.
  • 3 1
 @wolftwenty1: Exactly what I'm saying. Nobody cares how much you work, you get paid on the profit you make, and that is the case for both genders. In sports you don't get an hourly rate, on the most basic level you are not even in sports but in advertisement. Brands pay you, and give you their product and you do your best to display that product and make it seem appealing to potential customers. Which is why I am saying pay isn't defined by gender or hours worked, which in turn invalidates the whole "I'm being paid x amount less than my male counterpart" That argument only works if you have the exact same reach, which I think is very unlikely for most female athletes (looking at instagram follower numbers)
  • 2 0
 @zazu218: Wouldn't be surprised myself if the UCI enforced a rule like this. But then again, that would mean they listened to an athlete, which seems very unlikely to me.
  • 1 0
 @BikeMatthias: You make an excellent point haha. Ruin bike teams financially BUT they listen to athletes or ignore the athletes BUT all the teams get to keep competing. My vote is definitely for the latter as they seem to have had no problem ignoring riders in the past. I'm sure UCI will find a way to make things worse though, have no fear.
  • 1 0
 What would happen if there were two identical tracks on the same hill or two Rampage zones next to each other on the same rock? Men and women drop at the same time and you can only watch one.
Almost everyone would watch the one with the highest level of riders. Right now that’s the men. If one day the women surpass the men then everyone will be watching them and no one will be watching the men.
  • 24 3
 surprise, surprise - the numbers agree that there is a real pay gap.

The chart shows there is a significant pay gap with women on average paid more than men by the looks of it.
Could you display this with a box plot and p value?
The sample size for the women's field might not be large enough though to show a statistical significance.
The chart appears to show significantly more men at the bottom end of the chart compared to women.
There are more men at the top end also, suggesting the standard deviation of pay for male athletes is significantly worse than for females. This may be expected though as the male field is significantly larger than females.
Would be interesting to plot this v performance based on percentage from fastest time of the day. I would expect the gender bias to be even more biased towards women being paid more as the pool of riders producing the highest performance is lower.

I don't have the raw data so can't put it into minitab to analyse it, just observations from eyeballing the figures.
  • 2 1
 That'd be cool, because for those that are bad at crunching numbers this would help a lot. Does it change anything if you factor in the 0-5000 range of the men?
  • 18 1
 It's very easy to look at a basic pie chart and say "look! pay gap!" It's another thing altogether to toss the stats in Minitab or Excel and run actual statistics tests. What's the mean and variance? How does pay stack up versus team, time spent racing, number of podiums, etc? Are there women in the same league (literally) as those 2 top-paid men included in this survey? Are there even women in that league? How does Nino Schurter stack up against Jolanda Neff and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot?

To be clear, I'm not saying that women aren't underpaid, or have an edge over men. However, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics, and there's no way of telling what these stats mean without more data.
  • 5 0
 Agreed that the graph and analysis above really isn't appropriate for the claim made, or at all conclusive. But, I disagree that it shows women are paid more. I went ahead and took the data points from the graph and ran some averages. There's larger pool of men at the bottom tier for sure, skewing the data. But the top male performers are making more than women by a huuuge margin, so that's the biggest gap. If you compare men and women making between 50k and 100k or less, average income is close to even, though.
  • 2 1
 @WildboiBen: this is why the data would need to be run. Average doesn't tell the picture without an SD.
There are also more men competing which will also skew the data.
As men I'm the 40 to 100th positions are probably significantly closer to women in 40th to 100th (if we compare similar data set sizes) then the data would be incredibly skewed, but. More men are closer to where they think they can't get better results and make a career out of racing as well as more men participating in mountain biking. Also... Are women more sensible and realise there isn't a good earning career in racing and therefore do other things outside of racing?
We really need the data cut appropriately.
Who at Pinkbike has minitab etc and can cut the data correctly?
  • 3 1
 I was going to say the same thing. If anything the graph shows that there very close to pay equality. Yes there are more men at the top end but equally the bottom end. In the $30k to $100k range you could argue that the women are on average better paid than the men.

I agree without knowing the number of respondents in each category, or some indication of salary v rankings. A regression analysis and the R number that comes out would be interesting. It would also be interesting to know how many of the ladies who responded are privateers v on a team? Clearly there are more men at the lowest end of the scale, is that because there are more male privateers than female? Are they junior and again whats the split between junior male and female responders who are privateers?
  • 2 0
 @betsie: Well you said that the chart shows women are paid more on average, so I'm just saying that isn't true. I still think there is a pay gap among top earners. Why are so few women breaking the 100k barrier compared to men? You could argue that the datasets need to be standardized to percentages (they should've been tbh since you have different sample sizes of men and women). But, at the same time the sample sizes were similar so that isn't a huge issue. I'm curious as well as to what's driving the differences at the bottom and top ends, respectively. I also wonder the income sources. Are some of these respondents including money earned off of a social media platform?
  • 2 0
 @WildboiBen: I wondered what the income source model is also. I imagine the earnings outside of racing and a straight sponsorship deal value should not be considered as they come down to the individual, how marketable they make themselves, how creative they are and maybe how hard they work for that money (BK being a good example v Danny hart, I imagine bk has a higher income and hasn't won a world cup... Yet)
I less the entire dataset is considered then it's impossible to draw a who gets paid more on average conclusion.
How this changes in the coming years with smaller fields will also be interesting.
In most companies there are few very high earners, more middle earners and the majority on lower wages. There are of course exceptions to that.
  • 2 1
 @betsie: Yeah I'd like to see a more thorough analysis. I think there is likely something there but it needs a much more methodical approach to be parsed out.
  • 2 0
 @WildboiBen:
I dont have mintiab on my work laptop at the moment (must install the 2nd last version and sort the licence out) and the data is exceptionally poor because.... the number of male responders is so low based on the assumption that there are more men in the sport (this is not just DH)!
Male responders 54
Female responders 46
Using the mean (middle) value of each of the earnings ranges.
Averages
Male $105046
Female $44728

DATA , sum is a basic mean*responders
Bracket...............Mean...Men...Sum.......Women..Sum
0-5000................2500....13......32500......4..........10000
5000-1000..........7500.....0.......0..............5..........37500
1000-20000.......12500....4.......50000.....10........125000
20000-30000.....25000....4......100000.....4.........100000
30000-40000.....35000....3......105000.....7.........245000
40000-50000.....45000....3......135000.....2.........90000
50000-1000000..75000...12....900000....12........900000
100000-250000..175000..7.....1225000...1.........175000
250000-5000000.375000.7.....2625000...1.........375000
5000000+............500000.1.....500000.....0.........0
DATAPOINTS......54...TOTAL 5672500...46.......2057500
AVERAGE..............................105046..............44728

If you plot this data in a scatterplot of the data... whish is what should be shown as the x-axis is consistently spaced and it really shows the difference in pay which is stark and doesn't show up in the column graph!!!

The big issue with the column graph and taking data from it is the upper values, there is a significant difference in 51k to 99k etc when you are up at the top end which makes the data have a large probability of error. The quantization noise masks the data.
  • 1 0
 @betsie: Yep that's what I did! I also looked at averages of those below and above the 50-100k bin though. Really the claims in this article need to be backed up by peer-reviewed study, like has been done for many other sports/industries. Of course that probably doesn't exist for mtb (any pb grad students in relevant fields looking for a thesis idea???). PB should really try to use similar methods to those in relevant literature, or at least reach out to experts for advice before publishing articles like this with inadequate analysis and a heavy touch of confirmation bias (i.e. Surprise, surprise). I wouldn't expect a bunch of journalists to be social science or statistics experts - but that's exactly why they shouldn't take on this kind of research without any help! This is why scientific reporting in the media is such a problem in general. Reporters don't talk/listen to the experts enough! Anyway, done ranting.
  • 1 0
 @betsie: but also, I will say, I'm not sure the sample for men needs to be larger to represent the total difference in men vs women riders. You just need a sufficient sample size from each and 54 seems like plenty to me.
  • 1 0
 @WildboiBen: you can get a 95% confidence level with 54 people in the dataset but .. the SD is too large and therefore the dataset wouldn't be acceptable as a sample of the population. I don't know the exact figure but you would have to add and subtract around 2.58Sd!
  • 1 0
 @betsie: gotcha fair enough
  • 1 0
 @intelligent-goldfish: they’re not in the same league. If they were there wouldn’t be men’s and women’s. It would be an open like it is in every other walk of life that’s not sport.
  • 24 5
 So almost half of those surveyed were female.

Considering male athletes vastly out number the females it does suggest that they didn’t actually survey a significant number of riders
  • 8 11
 They surveyed at least 51 men and 46 women. That seems like plenty to form a reliable data set considering there's only so many pro athletes who rank in the top 40 of their respective disciplines. Lighten up.
  • 16 2
 @mrbrighteyes: But it is not a representative data set. Of the 51 men, 13 were hardly paid or not paid at all. For the women, out of 46, 4 were not salaried. The end result of this is that the women had a larger absolute sample size, which does not correspond to the populations of salaried riders currently at the highest level of MTB.
  • 1 1
 @mrbrighteyes: But how many replied? And without going into details who. If all the top 10 ladies responded that would give you a different set of results compared to if it was only 2 of them. Same for the men, if 10 of the 51 were in the top 10 then you would get a different picture to if only 2 of them did and the other 49 respondents only occasionally made the cut for the finals.
  • 17 4
 Have the same questions been put to the men group? It would be interesting to see what men think of team diversity and sexism. A significant difference between the groups would show how much of an "old boy's club" it may be and how it may be an uphill battle to ask for diversity. No clear distinction between the groups would be a more encouraging sign of general agreement.
  • 5 2
 It has always felt to me like one of those things that's a much larger issue online than in real life. Maybe it just depends on the area you live, but here in Squamish everyone couldn't be more supportive of each other, from what I actually encounter on the trails. I'm sure outliers exist, but they're the exception.
  • 3 2
 @Sush: sometimes the outliers have the loudest voice.
  • 1 1
 @kevinturner12: that can definitely be true, makes it hard to get the whole picture like john was saying originally. We're just a very small community and further dividing us isn't really helping the community overall
  • 17 8
 One suggestion to make the sport more inclusive: stop making COQS jokes and publishing them, and stop reposting that stuff. Those are parking lot jokes to share with mates over a can, but when we're trying to bring up kids and bring in more girls to the sport, that kinda representation dissuades people from our sport.
  • 3 1
 Thank you
  • 4 1
 Dafuq is a COQS? Why are the only allowed in parking lots?
  • 2 0
 @CamNeelyCantWheelie: I think it was in the April fools round up. I can't speak as to why they hang around in parking lots with their mates.
  • 1 0
 @CamNeelyCantWheelie: yep, check article from other day
  • 7 0
 The NCAA women's basketball tournament should be looked to for guidance on how female athletes can leverage and get paid. The NIL "name image likeness" rule allows them to "brand" themselves and get sponsors. They are celebrity level female athletes getting major social media coverage outside of their televised games. Great to see it. You can't rely on your sponsors. You have to make a name for yourself and the sponsors will pay.
  • 12 6
 It's the same through all sports.. It is not about male or female, it is about the viewership that each groups brings in. Similar to WNBA, many of the teams are still upset about flying commercial and not private, comparing themselves to the mens teams. Unless your organization/team is bringing in a surplus of money, it is not operationally feasible for these accommodations to be made. The main driver of sports is MONEY, not gender.
  • 9 2
 Surprised to see so many women respond that they hadn't experienced sexism in the industry! Small progress toward greater change? Hope so
  • 4 0
 Yeah, but it's still 1 in 2 in the last year. Statistics would say each experience it at least every two years.
  • 5 0
 It would be good to include mean salaries as well as median and mode, since those tend to be the best representation of the average. Also, are these salaries just the dollar amount that is paid to the athlete in cash, or does it include the value of the equipment provided, travel and accommodation for events, registration fees, etc... That could be provided to the athletes? There are a lot of gaps in the info to take at just face value,
  • 4 0
 Median is standard way of reporting average pay to stop outliers, like the guy on $500k+, having a disproportionate effect.
  • 2 0
 @kevinturner12: or you could find the mean and the standard deviation and use that to find the outliers and remove them, then you would be able to represent better averages than the median. With topics as important as this, it is essential to present the data as clearly and accurately as possible. Surveys aren't the best way to collect data, since there are a lot of biases that can have an effect, but even then the information can be presented better. Having more, smaller pay ranges for example, a section that clarifies if that pay includes travel and equipment in there or if that is separate, lots of ways to improve.
  • 3 0
 @eae903: once you start removing the outliers, the mean and median start to converge anyway.
  • 10 0
 Diversify?
  • 5 0
 Uh. Hey. Editors. Read this line again. 50% = few and far between?

When asked whether they've experienced sexism in the last year, that number dropped to 48.6%, suggesting either that those experiences of sexism are relatively few and far between...
  • 28 24
 For every female rider complaining they don't get equal or enough pay, there's a 1000 male riders who are more skilled and faster on a bike that get paid zero to ride their bike and never will.

Yes there are a handful of very good female riders but there are many more mediocre female riders that are getting product/money simply because they're female.
  • 4 1
 It's just a matter of percentages. If we use the survey numbers, 96.2 % of all riders are men, who are on average more likely to participate in a sport competitively, wanting to race or compete. If we just look at the UCI DH finals, 30 elite men and 10 elite women, that means that 96.2% of riders are comparing for 75% of the spots where the other 25% of spots are given to less than 4% of riders.
  • 7 2
 Thanks for breaking this out of the survey as a specific article! It is great to have some data brought to such an important topic.
  • 5 0
 I imagine their value goes down now the world cup isn't viewable in all countries. We still have no where to watch it in Australia....
  • 6 4
 A lot of comments have touched on this, but I think it'd be an interesting podcast discussion or panel (ideally including athletes) about if the "product" provided by men's and women's events are really the same. I see merits to both of the main arguments I've seen here. If the racing is close, it's exciting (easier to see in XC with them all on course at the same time) vs. I want to see the absolute fastest, best riding physically possible.

Would be cool to hear a good talk about it from the people involved if they could honestly explore a bunch of ideas without turning it into a virtue signaling contest.
  • 6 2
 It saddens me that you're currently downvoted 3:1 for suggesting that we have productive discourse on a topic that people are interested in, and disagree on; presumably for the purpose of understanding it better and making progress collectively.
  • 2 0
 Cumulative distribution tells your visual story better. The density distribution requires the data consumer take in too many data points to understand your assertion that "there is a pay disparity". From your graphic its hard to tell that 75% of women make less than 50K compared to 50% men - but a simple cumulation distribution chart would show this.
  • 2 0
 There was a great argument made I heard once comparing Influencer Marketing to Grassroots Marketing as it pertains to which is more valuable to a brand. You could pay Kim Kardashian who has 364 million followers on instagram a million dollars to promote your product and likely not even break even on that investment. Or you could pay smaller "grassroots" influencer with 10,000 followers $2,000 dollars and have a significantly higher change of seeing a ROI (male or female). Sometimes a larger following pool doesn't always equal a high engagment rate with the user and what products they promote. I think Deity does a really great job of this style of marketing and does a good job of supporting the sport regardless of gender.
  • 2 0
 Judging by this survey, it seems things have gone backwards from the 90's where DH women often times, had longer autograph lines, many were paid equal to more than the men and coverage was equal on espn, eurosport, outdoorlife, etc...
  • 4 0
 The new broadcasters are not doing much to grow the sport and everyone wants more money. A disconnect.
  • 4 3
 It seems like there's only three options re the pay gap:

1.) Pay is primarily based on revenue coming into the sport from male or female riders;

2.) Pay is primarily based on performance and men and women compete against each other; or

3.) You disregard the first 2 factors and just pay based on a desire to pay men and women equally.

Re 1, historically, this favors men because male sports tends to dominate women's sports in revenue - not even by a close margin.

Re 2, this would effectively result in the death of competitive female sports as we know it.

Re 3, you could do this (and it has been done in some cases - see US soccer's new deal, NBA subsidizing the WNBA, etc.), but 1 and 2 are the classic "merit based" pay options so, if you go with 3, you are conceding that, to some degree at least, female athletes cannot get paid the same based on merit, i.e., it must be subsidized.
  • 6 5
 One would say if that's the depth of your survey in terms response numbers, it CAN NOT be seen as a valid assessment tool or statistically relevant or representative for any subsequent evaluation of the industry, sport or culture. Oh, and look, women who have joined the chat seek authoritarian compulsory legislation to force participation and entitled team roles!. Single Woke Females will kill all good things in the world, and are by their very nature socialist. Nothing ever good came from compulsion, mob-vibe and reform agenda under the cover of Marxism.
  • 7 4
 "The men get paid more because they draw more revenue." -Sun Tzu
"Remember, with great money-making comes great pay." -Uncle Ten
  • 10 9
 Jim and I work together. Jim builds widgets and I build doo-dads. Widgets and doo-dads are similar, but slightly different and widgets happen to be more profitable with a bigger TAM. Jim makes more money than me - say about 30% more.

One day, I approach my boss and say - I would like to be paid fairly; like Jim. My boss kindly reminds me that I build doo-dads and Jim builds widgets.

Now I'm at a crossroads. Here's some options for my next move:

1. Start building widgets exactly like Jim, achieve equal pay
2. Find another company or industry who will pay me more to do either the same thing or something else that I'm qualified for
3. Help my company grow the market for doo-dads, and be compensated accordingly
4. Continue to ask my boss for more money, even though she doesn't have any more to give me without negatively impacting the company's balance sheet

I choose option 4. And even though my boss values me, her hands are tied because she has corporate overloards pulling her strings. I am sad. I mistakenly think that I am not as valuable as Jim but I am wrong. It is simply my work that is not as valuable as Jim's work. I have chosen to leave my fate up to destiny and activism, rather than taking control of it myself. The world continues to turn.
  • 7 4
 5: get together with other doo-dad makers and refuse to work until you are paid fairly. Don't just assume your boss doesn't have the money to pay you. Have a look at the car she drives.
  • 8 3
 @kevinturner12: 6.1 Get fired and replaced by a doo dad maker from a country with a lower economy since you stopped bringing any benefit to the company.

6.2 Get replaced with a robotic doo dad maker that will pay for itself in a year by working 24/7.

Understanding the value you bring will always be more beneficial than looking at what car your boss drives.
  • 2 2
 @kevinturner12:

It's a bold move. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't.

Just don't hold the line unless you want to find out if widgets can replace doo-dads entirely. As the famed economist Milton Friedman definitely once said: F*** around and find out.
  • 6 5
 Women who don't see sexism in sport, should read the PB comments. Fragile men defining what women should accept or should be able to do or degraded to be substandard to a Male... so LOL As a male, its sad to understand that women either don't see it, or accept it as normal, so its OK, or brainwashed to see it as the correct way to be.
  • 1 0
 if you are a company with a marketing budget and you want to have a successful business, who are you going to market to.. men or women? I love idea of getting women into the sport. I have a daughter and take her riding with her brother every time we go. But if im running a business i want to market to people who will buy my products. according to the pb public survey 96% of respondents were male. 2% were female. If you were running a business and barely surviving what sex would you sponsor?
  • 9 5
 Wait, what. Salaries aside, why the f*ck is the prize money only half?
  • 13 2
 I would think it's because there are usually hundreds of men entered in a World cup race paying entry fees & only a fraction of that number in the women's races.
  • 4 1
 @Darknut: True except UCI DH prize money is a pittance. $3600 for the top spot on the podium...10th earns the kingly sum of $200.

Money is generated by fans, and advertisers. Entry fees are a revenue blip.

Organizers need to cut loose with a less insulting amount of prize money in general. Doubling the prize money up top isn't going to bankrupt the organization. I mean, passing a hat around the spectators for spare change would double that 10th place prize.

I remember a Vital podcast where Dakota Norton had forgotten to claim his $1000 prize from a 3rd place finish in the previous race all together untill the interviewer reminded him.
  • 2 1
 @fiftypercentsure: Mountain biking is a relatively small sport so there isn't as much money to pay athletes more. Maybe they could pay much higher prizes but it's hard to say without knowing the real numbers the UCI rakes in. The prize money is certainly laughable at the moment. Only the most elite in the sport make ok money and those ones are risking their lives to make average software developer money.
  • 6 6
 Any US based female athlete who believes they are being paid less than a similarly situated male athlete (comparator) can file a complaint with the US EEOC alleging a violation of the EPA. They could also bypass the EEOC process and file a complaint in Federal Court.
  • 3 4
 Define 'similarly situated' in this context.

You could win a world cup and bring less value than 25th place rider who has a great social media exposure, photogenic, good at interviews and pro-actively promotes the brand they ride for.

But I assume your comment was tongue in cheek anyway?
  • 4 5
 @justanotherusername: "The Equal Pay Act requires that men and women in the same workplace be given equal pay for equal work. The jobs need not be identical, but they must be substantially equal. Job content (not job titles) determines whether jobs are substantially equal. All forms of pay are covered by this law, including salary, overtime pay, bonuses, stock options, profit sharing and bonus plans, life insurance, vacation and holiday pay, cleaning or gasoline allowances, hotel accommodations, reimbursement for travel expenses, and benefits. If there is an inequality in wages between men and women, employers may not reduce the wages of either sex to equalize their pay." www.eeoc.gov/equal-paycompensation-discrimination
  • 3 3
 @ADKing: oh wow, you were serious…..

Would you consider an athlete to be ‘waged’ or even employed in the same way as people are in more usual forms of employment?

Can you explain why there isn’t equal pay between ‘substantially equal’ male athletes, let alone male v female athletes?

Are you genuinely serious? As in no trolling?
  • 4 4
 @justanotherusername: There are four factors that an employer can use to justify a pay disparity between two similarly situated employees of opposite sex. "Pay differentials are permitted when they are based on seniority, merit, quantity or quality of production, or a factor other than sex. These are known as "affirmative defenses" and it is the employer's burden to prove that they apply." The "factor other than sex" defense is mostly like what the employer would argue in this scenario.
  • 4 4
 @ADKing: you just going to copy and paste Wikipedia as a reply?

Do you consider a sponsored athlete to fall under this type of ‘employment’ - has anyone brought such a case to bear against a sponsor in the past or do you think you are the first person in the world to consider this?

Or perhaps are you taking plain old shite?
  • 2 0
 @ADKing: If what you're saying is correct why isn't every female athlete in the US earning the same as their male counterparts?
  • 1 0
 @ADKing: You will find that in most cases they are not employees of the brand. They will be self employed with their own companies and so not covered by employee legislation. In the UK you can view their company accounts as they are public record.
  • 1 1
 @commental: Not just that, why isn't every comparable male athlete earning the same as another comparable male athlete.

Wikipedia nonsense.
  • 2 2
 @justanotherusername: "You could win a world cup and bring less value than 25th place rider who has a great social media exposure, photogenic, good at interviews and pro-actively promotes the brand they ride for."

True, social media popularity is a revenue based form of compensation and there are plenty of examples of female athletes making lots of money (exorbitant some would say - see, for example, the college gymnast Olivia Dunne) from social media popularity. In fact, I would argue that going forward, female athletes are at a distinct advantage over men in this space. Although some might question the ethics, morals etc. of it, from a purely shrewd point of view, social media popularity might be a place where female athletes should focus more heavily on if pay is the primary concern. It's already happening in women's college athletics after the NCAA relaxed its compensation rules. Again, it sucks from the "we can do anything men can do and better" standpoint, but there are ways to out earn (wildly in some case) male athletes.

If the metric of pay is based on athletic performance alone, then women will inherently lose against men due to immutable physical advantages that men have over women - particularly at the highest levels. If the metric is overall sports revenue, then men, historically at least, will generally win that battle too.

But, social media and the internet, as we know, hyper-segments the market. So, this has the effect of sort of cancelling out most other factors and just zeroing in on the individual athlete. It's similar to the "influencer" phenomena, where women are a powerful and successful force.
  • 1 2
 @burnermtb: Good points about social media - there are lots of female riders getting sponsorship due to great social media exposure, even if it is sometimes for dubious reasons that fall outside of their ability on a bike, meanwhile many male riders struggle to get so much as discounts and a few free tyres and are at the level where they are trying to qualify for world cups.
  • 2 0
 @justanotherusername: Yes, for the men, as it generally has been for all of time, your worth is very much performance based, which is very cut throat and results in most men losing. That is the point, isn't it, in "winning", i.e., everyone else loses. Everyone talks about the man at the top, but forgets about the far more men who lost in the contest to get to the top.

In this odd sort of way, no matter how hard we try to shake it, those old "stereotypes" persist. This "new" media landscape offers women a way to use "other" qualities (often times sexuality) to sort of "pad" athletic shortcomings; which is "regressive" as all get out in a purely feminist sense, but shrewd nonetheless. Social media proves that millions of people will happily watch "mid" to "upper-mid" female athletes doing "mid" to "upper-mid" things. So, Olivia Dunne is a competitive and talented college gymnast, but she's not like on any sort of Olympic track. But millions of people will watch her doing a 10 second tiktok dance. I think we know what's going on there...
  • 2 0
 @justanotherusername: Great questions. The quotations I provided come straight from the federal agency tasked with enforcing the Equal Pay Act. The EPA prohibits sex-based wage discrimination between men and women in the same establishment who perform jobs that require substantially equal skill, effort and responsibility under similar working conditions. The EPA is not applicable in same sex pay disparity situations. The inference that athletes are independent contractors can be quantified by reviewing the FLSA and the operative State's statutes regarding independent contractor classification. Meaning there are multiple factors that can point to either a person being an employee or an IC. Essentially how much control and direction does the employer have over the contracted person. If the person wears company clothing, uses company tools, rides in company vehicles, is on the company website, is on company payroll/benefits, etc. It may be hard to term them as an IC. Once the employer/employee relationship is established you would then look at the comparator employee to determine if they perform substantially equal skill, effort and responsibility under similar working conditions. The burden then switches back to the employer to establish whether seniority, merit, quantity or quality of production, or a factor other than sex is the reason for the disparity. After that it's up to the judge or jury. As an aside, recent legislation requires that all athletes representing the United States in global athletic competitions receive equal compensation and benefits in their sport, regardless of gender. It requires equal payment for medical care, travel, and expenses. This is called the Equal Pay for Team USA Act.
  • 1 0
 @burnermtb: I hate it
Thank you
  • 4 3
 Historically, most if not all countries and industries have needed activism, litigation and legislation to move towards equal pay. Do we think that a male dominated industry like cycling would be any different?
  • 5 2
 Legislation. The market doesn't support what I like so let's force it on them!
  • 1 1
 All we ever hear is gender pay gap. I don't see any women complaining how much more money they make as female models verses male models or even the sex worker industry ( EX..onlyfans ) and many other industries.that are female dominated. Its economics people! Companies are giving money out they want a return for their investment dollars into advertising. They are gonna put it where they get the best outcome for what they sell. I remember when I took an industry seminar from BOSE. They said their brand appeals to more women than men because women like small Electronics that disappear into the household. So they were only advertising in women's magazines like vogue and paying only females to endorse the product. Basically putting more money into female driven platforms than male. Business is business and I'm tired of the complaining for handouts. Just seems to be constantly being jammed down our throats all the time like its an actual think. Many economic professors, Female mind you have said their studies show no gender pay gap. IT all came from a 1 time study that grouped all professions together for male and female. And of course when averaged together males made more money because they took on more higher paid jobs. Like dangerous jobs, worked longer hours. Women chose more of the cushy jobs that paid less. Also women didn't want to put into the companies like men did with hard and over time as many still prioritized home life and family. Companies Know this. Even women CEO's have said hiring women has been challenging for their company because they don't put in the same work ethic as men. And even said many women employees will usually get the men to do their projects for them. Just do some homework and you will see a lot of women CEO's and managers discussing this. Its all about merit and what you are worth to them. If you want everything to be equal and Rationed that would be communism. And that thinking is where it will eventually lead to. And besides pay there are many areas where women are prioritized over men. Like cheaper things like car insurance for the same driving record as a male counterpart. Women don't get the same sentence for the same crime as a man. Lets not even go down the road of the family court system....But you won't hear a peep from women about these inequalities. Only the cherry picked ones to their benefit. We need to stop this Gender division. It is not good for society.
  • 25 26
 I do not understand why there is a pay gap in XC, Enduro and DH. I don't want to be harsh but I understand it in freeride and slopestyle because the skills gap is so large but in XC, Enduro and DH I don't find the women any less entertaining then the men.
  • 49 5
 I am sure I am going to get downvoted here, but in enduro and DH the skills gap is pretty large too - just look at the times. XC I find just as entertaining because of the nature of the competitions, the field all races at the same time, DH and Enduro doesn't have that.
  • 16 3
 I agree that there are some sports where I find watching the female athletes is just as entertaining. But I don't think the overall revenue numbers support that. I prefer women’s soccer over men’s. The games just seem to have more contact and action in them. But I know I am not in the majority.

It is easy to find a woman that thinks female athletes are underpaid. It is much harder to find a woman that believes that and actually watches and supports that sport. The men get paid more because they bring in more money. Athletes have a commission-based career. More eyes on you, more money you bring in. People want women to earn more in sports, go watch them.
  • 7 7
 @skiandmtbdirtbag: Maybe it doesn't translate well on TV, but enduro in person the women's races are just as exciting even with the time differences.
  • 11 6
 @skiandmtbdirtbag: For me, downhill is still just as exciting. I don't think the actual speed always makes for the viewing experience and if the clock wasn't there, I wouldn't know how much time they were off (partially due to the runs being cut up). I think it's fun to watch each rider take on the tough sections and see if they gain or lose time against their opponents. I'm not downplaying the skill/strength difference between the men/women as men's times are clearly much faster and maybe I'd notice it more if they were alternating runs, but when I'm watching the women's race, I'm not really enjoying it any less because of that. The only thing I like less about women's DH racing is that the field is less deep, so I'm less excited for the riders outside of the top group. Most men's races are won by the very top guys too, but there is usually a number down in the 20-30 qualifying range who I want to watch.

Slopestyle/freeride is different in some ways as it's more of an aesthetic appreciation so the jumps/drops/tricks being a couple of levels bigger does actually impact my viewing experience. If I viewed it just as a competition with the point of interest being who wins, I think it would be closer.

That being said, I actually love watching a good number of women free riders. They're infinitely better than me, but a tiny bit closer to what I can comprehend/appreciate. I like watching the top men, but they might as well be aliens.
  • 7 5
 @MarcusBrody: Well using that argument, watching juniors would be just as exciting, and clearly less eyes are on the juniors.

I am not taking anything from your experience, people enjoy what they enjoy. I think you are in the minority though.
  • 2 15
flag nvranka (Apr 3, 2024 at 11:37) (Below Threshold)
 Hahahahahahahaha
  • 5 1
 @skiandmtbdirtbag: I would watch the juniors if they were televised. I guess I don't watch anything anymore now that DH isn't on RedBull TV, but I used to get up, watch the top 10 women, go get breakfast, shower, etc (or just skip ahead if I was watching tape delay), and then watch the top 25-30 men. I'd have been happy to add the top juniors to that if they showed them.
  • 6 1
 I'm reasonably interested in watching the women's DH field but I don't get hyped until I watch the men's field top 20... the speeds and skill look super human. For me there is just no comparison. The women's field has been improving though and I hope that trend continues.
  • 3 3
 They are paid by private companies to represent the brands they are using - what they are paid is based on the value they bring to the companies and as that is entirely different from rider to rider even when you don't take into account gender I struggle to see how you find this so baffling?

Its not a pay gap, its self employed people being paid what they are worth by companies they effectively contract to, perceived 'skills' have nothing to do with it.
  • 4 1
 @justanotherusername: if you are employed by a private company, you are paid the amount it takes to keep you. That might be influenced by the value you bring but it isn't the whole story.
  • 1 3
 @kevinturner12: and a company wants to keep someone due to the value they add to the company
  • 3 1
 @justanotherusername: yes but the amount they have to pay depends on what you could get elsewhere. The value you bring is part of the equation but not all of it. When you recruit someone, the question of pay is what does everyone else pay? I have never tried to calculate the value someone brings.
  • 1 2
 @kevinturner12: do you sponsor athletes?
  • 2 0
 @MarcusBrody: The juniors got more free to view coverage last season than ever
  • 2 1
 @justanotherusername: this is the comments section. It's for people who don't know what they're talking about.
  • 1 1
 @kevinturner12: ah at least you are honest.
  • 1 0
 Because many of the top XC racers could also ride road which pays way more if your any good
  • 1 0
 @kevinturner12: I would argue that anything you suggest outside of "value" would still be a part of the value you bring.
  • 2 0
 @PtDiddy: Yeah, this one has always been fascinating. Whenever the topic of the pay gap comes up with women I know, one of the first questions I always ask is something along the lines of.."hey, when are you going to the NWSL game?" or "who is your favorite WNBA player?" or "where's your Alex Morgan jersey?". 9 times out of 10, they don't even know the name of a single player, team, don't own a single sports jersey, etc. or even the name of the leagues. But they do know that women get paid less and "that's wrong". When you consider not only the fact that women are roughly half the population, women - particularly young women - are now major income earners and, in fact, account for the vast majority of many multi-billion dollar viewer segments in media, the issue of the "pay gap" is very much in the hands of women - if they just tuned in to sports like men did. You wouldn't even need men. You can go around us entirely.
  • 2 0
 @burnermtb: yep, though I don’t expect much to change. Pretty funny tbh.
  • 1 0
 @nvranka: I don't see much changing either. In the US, women and girl's sports, at the youth level at least, has been thriving and on the ascendency, since roughly the 80's-90's. Generations of girls have been exposed to sports at a very young age as much, if not more, than boys. It's not an exposure issue at this point. It just doesn't seem to resonate, to the same degree at least, with women in the long run. Even among girls that I know who played sports growing up, at best, the interest is very "transient" or casual in watching sports over the long haul. There are exceptions of course. My Mom is a diehard college basketball fan, for example. But even there, guess what she's watching...men's college basketball. lol

To really make a change, you'd have to see a radical shift in the way in which the avg. woman watches sports. Men aren't going to do it for the women. It has to come from women. But why would that ever really happen? People like what they like.
  • 3 0
 @burnermtb:

The tough question is what do women’s sports offer the viewer that men’s does not.

I’m not a woman, nor do I have a daughter or pay much attention to this stuff, but I’ve noticed the same as you. Since my childhood, late 80s, I’ve seen the women’s sports stuff pushed hard. All of my friend’s daughters play youth sports, it seems to be extremely inclusive.

I’m not a basketball fan, but my grandfather was obsessed, and he preferred college ball as he claimed it was more exciting.

Does women’s sports offer anything men’s does not? I know the athletes themselves are more directly relatable to young girls who want a role model or a hero, but at the consumer / viewer level…men and women both just seemingly want to watch whoever is the best.
  • 1 0
 @nvranka: Correct. If you're a "neutral" sports fan with no particular investment in the gender component, then in most cases men's sports offers the same and generally much more than women's sports. And this is key because like any media product, it's a matter of bandwidth for the viewer. People have limited time to dedicate to this, so, are they are going to invest their limited time in, say, the men's champion's league final where they get to watch Messi play Ronaldo or a NWSL match played at the Raleigh-Durham "soccer center" in front of 1000 or so people? It's not even a question, for the "neutral" sports viewer.

Ostensibly, this will even be true for a critical mass of women's sports fans. Sure, the tug of "identifying" with the gender will be there to some degree, but enough to where a good layup is better than watching LeBron James, etc.? Maybe for little girls, but that probably wanes over time.

At the end of the day, however, women could change this entire dynamic if they wanted to. As yet, it appears they just don't want to. Maybe that will change, but, if it hasn't yet, not sure why would expect it would by doing the same thing we've been doing really for 40 or so years now.
  • 3 0
 that drawing has to be Rachel
  • 7 4
 Whoever brings the money gets paid more.
  • 8 5
 Legislated diversity? Sounds like mandatory fun.
  • 1 0
 Where does 65.3% for experiencing sexism come from? If you add up 'agree', 'strongly agree' and 'neutral', it comes to a total of 60.2%.
  • 4 6
 If a pro #1 female wins as much a pro uci male and their pay isnt the same, same team, same bike, same sponsors . Thats sexist.

If men are paid more as they win more, they bring in more revenue to sponsors. Thats just the way it is. Like NBA vs WNBA. If people filled the stadiums, bought as much merch for a wnba team as an nba, the pay should be the same.

In mma, Ronda Rousey was paid well because she brought in a ton of ticket sales
  • 4 5
 Surprised to see so many women respond that they hadn't experienced sexism in the industry! Small progress toward greater change? Hope so
  • 5 14
flag masters5 (Apr 3, 2024 at 14:57) (Below Threshold)
 They know how to fix it. Forced team position and entitlement based on gender! The golden skirts club rides again.
  • 3 4
 Surprised to see so many women respond that they hadn't experienced sexism in the industry! Small progress toward greater change? Hope so
  • 4 1
 Does this work in the same way as when you say Beetlejuice 3 times? ;-)
  • 4 7
 "I personally think that gender should be taken out of contract and pay. A lot of male riders get paid more than females because they are more valuable at the end of the day. They have bigger following and they have more marketability and they sell more bikes. The women that sell more than men get paid more than those men."

Is that a man undercover ?? haha
Very interesting takes for sure, most of them I agree, but I would say more "equity" than "equality" especially on the wages (gender at the end of the day should be irrelevant). For sure the importance of women in teams should be the same to encourage more of them in the team and foster initiatives to support them from the younger categories, because in the end it starts there...
  • 4 3
 Should subjective data be used to draw conclusions?
  • 6 7
 Bring value get paid more, don’t bring value don’t get paid more. Women aren’t as good at sports so it’s not as fun to watch them. Bing bang boom
  • 2 1
 Okayyyyy. Anyways, I'ma go ride my bike
  • 1 0
 I'm just here for Taj's cartoons.
  • 1 0
 They are excellent
  • 1 0
 Right to the comment section for this one
  • 1 0
 GIVE THE SLOPESTYLE KIDS BREAKFAST!
  • 8 9
 Funny how ladies always wanna talk about the "pay gap" but not the performance gap. Rolleyes
  • 3 4
 So what about to pay all the athletes based on times and points?
  • 5 4
 Or how about athletes are paid by private companies for the value they bring to them and entirely between them?
  • 1 0
 @justanotherusername: they are paid by private companies and I guess this is something they think about before signing sponsorship agreement
  • 1 1
 @bok-CZ: exactly - so why would you expect all athletes would be paid the same amount based purely on race points and position, that's not how a sponsor values its athletes.
  • 1 0
 @justanotherusername: that was meaned for the price money/show fee
  • 1 1
 @bok-CZ: Yea thats much less complicated, but it would still depend on competitor numbers then - cant go giving the same prize to a 5th place woman if only 5 riders turn up, surely?
  • 1 1
 @justanotherusername: Yep, you know like on the kind of races you have to pay start fee which is then partly given to riders based on standings.
I know nowadays kids got medals for just finishing something they attended, no matter the place. But it wasn't always like this
  • 1 2
 Women need to F off from our getaway from women
  • 2 4
 There's not only a pay gap, there's also a skills and risk gap!
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