The Iowa Women’s basketball team has the entire country captivated with their talent, grit and skillful play. What could possibly be disappointing about this season? Only one thing. The coaching staff—the masterminds behind it all—are grossly underpaid compared to the coaching staff for the men’s basketball team.
Lisa Bluder’s contract provides for a guaranteed $1.4 million annually, while Fran McCaffrey, the men’s coach, is guaranteed $3.3 million a year. Jan Jensen, the associate head women’s coach who, by all accounts, is one of the best assistant coaches in the country, earns $255,000 annually and assistant coach Raina Harmon earns $165,000. Meanwhile, men’s assistant coach Sherman Dillard earns $298,619 annually, Matt Gatens earns $277,500 and Courtney Eldridge earns $267,200. U of I salaries.
Lisa Bluder has been at the University of Iowa for 24 years and has gotten her team into the NCAA tournament an astonishing 17 times! She is a three-time Big Ten coach of the year, a Naismith Award winner and has coached the Hawkeyes to back-to-back Final Fours.
The gender pay gap is widespread across the entire workforce, but it is highlighted in the continuing disparities between male and female coaches. This pay discrimination has been challenged in court on multiple occasions. In 1994, Marianne Stanley, the women’s basketball coach at USC, sued the college under the Equal Pay Act because she was paid substantially less than the coach of the men’s team despite the success of her program. At the time, the court concluded she did not perform equal work to the men’s coach, because men’s basketball was simply more popular and, therefore, the men’s coach had more responsibilities. Ignoring the fact that I completely disagree with the court’s reasoning, that certainly can’t justify the pay difference for the coaching staff at Iowa now. The Iowa women sold far more tickets this year than the men’s team and for a higher average price. Women’s basketball on Fox is averaging more viewers than men’s basketball, and it’s reasonable to assume that holds true for other networks.
But times are changing. Even if it is at a glacial pace. In 2017, Jane Meyer, a senior associate athletic director sued the University of Iowa alleging gender discrimination within the athletics department, including that she was paid less than a male athletic director with the same job. A jury agreed with Meyer and awarded her $1.43 million in damages.
Women in the US still earn about 83 cents for every dollar earned by men for performing EQUAL WORK. The pay gap for black women is even worse at 70 cents on the dollar. This is 61 years after the enactment of the Equal Pay Act. Equal pay is important for all women, not just coaches. The gender pay gap persists among women of all educational and achievement levels.
The University of Iowa, with the national audience they now enjoy because of women’s basketball, should be a leader in closing the gender pay gap. Other universities have done just that. Kim Mulkey at LSU earns $3.26 million per year compared to the men’s basketball coach who earns $2.7 million. South Carolina Coach Dawn Mulkey earns $3.1 million annually, which is much closer to the $3.7 million paid annually to the men’s coach.
It is well past time for men’s and women’s basketball coaches to be paid equally. Not just the head coaches, but the assistants too. They are doing Equal Work. They deserve Equal Pay.