Should female athletes get paid as much as male athletes

First, let me formally apologize for not including my sources. Once I had submitted my argument, I realized I forgot to paste my sources. I immediately posted one to the comment board of this debate. Please accept my apologies. Rebuttals: -The topic in which you chose for this argument exclusively states that male athletes should be paid more than female athletes. Therefore, you are proposing that if a male athlete is insufficient, then he should still be paid more than a woman because he is a male. If you do not agree with this statement, you should have clarified the motive of this debate because the topic clearly states the male population, no mater your abilities, if you are an athlete, you should be paid more than a woman athlete. -You said, "Let"s say Jessica and Bob both study calculus for 10 hours a week. Jessica was born extremely smart and Bob was born moderately intelligent. By your logic, they should both be awarded the same grade on all of their calculus tests because Bob was not born as smart as Jessica. So you argument does not hold any clout because even though Jessica and Bob were born with different body anatomies, they will, and should receive different grades (School equivalent of Pay)." In defense to you believing men as a whole should be paid more than men... If the woman receives a better grade, she would receive the better average. Pertaining to sports, if the woman puts forth a better performance than the male, then she therefore deserves to be paid more. On your side of the argument, you are saying that no matter the situation, all men should be paid more than women if they are an athlete. This is exactly why I said, "It's discrimination." Because it is. You cannot choose to pay someone solely because of their gender. Performance is the key reason why an athlete should be paid. True, male athletes have physical advantages, but if a woman happens to be faster or better, she deserves the higher pay. You supported this argument when you said, "In addition, different men are born with different biological advantages. So should the Man who runs a 3:50 mile as his "max" be paid the same as a man who runs a 4:00 mile as his "max", the answer is no because athletes are paid based on performance." If you believe men should be paid more than women athletes, then you are contradicting yourself because you said that athletes should be paid based in performance. This should include all athletes, not exclusively males. -"Athletes get paid based on how many people they can bring into stadiums and how many people that will watch them on TV. WNBA games averaged just 413,000 viewers, compared to 1.46 million viewers for NBA games (http://outsports.com.........). This means the men"s better performances attract more viewers, which means more advertising money." Although this may be true, we are talking about individual male players. The guy sitting on the bench at the NBA games should not be paid more than the star player on the WNBA team. That's not right. Being a man doesn't entitle you to better pay. Your performance does. If you sit on he bench for the whole season, you better not be getting paid more than the woman scoring her team 20 points each game. -My opponent said, "Should athletes not be allowed to use the talents they were born with? No, they should use their talents to the fullest and they will be paid based on performance, whether or not the women can 'keep up'". Of course they should use their talents they were born with! But just because men are men and women are women, that is not a reason as to how they should be paid. Their performance abilities are how they should be paid. Period, so I'd like to correct myself when I said "but being paid should be centraled around the amount of work in my opinion." -One source I came across says, "Sue Bird, a member of the Seattle Storm in the WNBA, has been called a poster child for women"s athletics. Unfortunately for her, that fame hasn't exactly translated into tremendous riches. At the beginning of her maiden year in the hoops league, she made just $57,500. Eventually, her salary increased, but not above $87,000, which, according to InsideHoops.com, was the maximum pay in the WNBA. She and her teammates received a $10,000 bonus for winning the league title in 2004.Compare the salaries of Bird and her fellow WNBA stars to those in the NBA and you"ll see the gender gap is as big as the Grand Canyon. According to the Women"s Sports Foundation, the average NBA salary rose to $3.17 million per player in the 1999-2000 season, while the average WNBA salary was about $55,000. That means the men made almost 60 times more than the women. A few WNBA players earn more than $100,000 a year, but that is only because they have side jobs, such as playing in other leagues or helping with WNBA marketing efforts." Read more at: http://www.askmen.com...... That article justifies the fact that women are being paid in a discriminating manner. Bird is an exceptional basketball player, but she continuously makes less than other male players who are just as good. In my opinion, as a woman, I think it's completely unfair for people to be paid based on gender. Now, if Bird was an unsuccessful player, I'd understand, but she isn't. Therefore, she should be making just as much as the star player in the men's team. -Another source (http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org...) records, "For a WNBA player in the 2005 season, the minimum salary was $31,200, the maximum salary was $89,000, and the team salary cap was $673,000. For NBA players in the 2004-2005 season, the minimum salary was $385,277, the maximum salary was $15.355 million, and the team salary cap was $46 million." Some of the stats for the WNBA team are equal to if not better than NBA stars, so why aren't they being paid equally? Inequality in athletic pay requiring gender is wrong. Complaints have been made from women in regards to being paid unfairly due to gender: http://upload.athleticbusiness.com... -Overall, I think your topic is vague. If you truly believe that men as a whole, despite the circumstances, should be paid more than women, I think you need to analyze why you feel men are superior to women. It's about performance. I don't understand why you (also) said it is about performance, but then this debate is about men getting paid more than women no matter what.. That is all. Thank you for inviting me to this debate. More debates regarding the problem with being paid based on performance can be found on this site if you're interested in some further reading on this topic: http://lawprofessors.typepad.com...