YOU GOTTA FIGHT/ FOR THE RIGHT/ TO PARITY

Broadcaster, writer and professor Jane McManus pulls no punches in a lively discussion with Helen M. Jerome about the progress – and all-too familiar setbacks – in women’s sport. Frailty, fun, falling uteruses, fandom, and Megan Rapinoe… it’s all here!

Jane McManus recently published her excellent book, Fast Track: Inside the Surging Business of Women’s Sports, and last year was guest editor of The Year’s Best Sportswriting. Currently Adjunct Professor at NYU at the Preston Robert Tisch Institute for Global Sport, she was previously founding Executive Director of the Centre for Sports Media at Seton Hall University, and taught at Columbia Grad School of Journalism. A columnist for The New York Daily News and Deadspin, she’s covered women’s sport and the NFL for ESPN – and as a founding columnist for espnW, she appeared in multiple network shows and hosted two ESPN Radio shows.

So who better to talk to about women’s sport and parity – starting with Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools, and in education programmes with funding from federal government…

Do you think Title IX is under threat?

Title IX has always been under threat. There really have been very few periods of time in the US since it was passed in ‘72 that it hasn’t been either in the courts, or commissions being put together to see whether or not it’s still relevant. That was in the Bush years.

I would say in the last 15 years, it hasn’t really been directly under threat. But I think the forces that have been disinterested in utilising resources for women to play sports have never really welcomed it here. I mean the criticism was quieted for a while, but it never went away.

What would losing Title IX mean?

We’re in a different place now in the US when it comes to women playing sport. The expectation of it is different. The opportunities for it are different.

What’s more concerning to me is the conversation around women’s sports is changing. There’s an element of frailty that’s entering now that has always been there, right?

I mean, go back to the 1800s and the idea that women’s uteruses would fall out if they ran, which is something I detailed in my book. That’s always been there, but to have it creeping up in a modern context, especially when we know how unfrail women are in the context of sports, that to me is a bit more troubling.

Is it genuinely under threat because of those two things, the political, but also this idea of frailty?

I don’t have any reporting that tells me that… but my suspicion is that you have an administration that’s fairly hot.

First of all, Title IX lives in the Department of Education. It’s enforced by the Department of Justice. There have never been actions against Title IX, never. You know, schools aren’t sued by the federal government generally when it comes to Title IX. It’s been individuals suing schools for compliance for Title IX.

But this administration is hostile to the Department of Education, number one – and I think that given an opportunity would certainly peel back many of the protections that Title IX has afforded women who play sports.

There’s a specific act from 2023, the Equal Pay for Team USA Act. Is that an outlier?

Yeah. That stems from some of that 2019 conversation around equal pay from the U.S. women’s national team (USWNT), which may have led to – no one told me the exact progression… but some of my reporting indicated that the act in the EU for pay transparency [coming into force in 2026] was influenced by some of the discussion around equal pay during that 2019 World Cup in France.

So there are no guarantees that people pay, there really aren’t. Basically, in a capitalist system like this, especially in sports, you’ve got to make your own.

Photo: Lorie Shaull

Another thing that seems key, is the idea that almost all of a woman’s earnings are through endorsements rather than their actual pay – and that feels like it hasn’t really moved. Is that your impression?

I agree. I don’t think that’s really moved much either. I mean, you just have to think about it, from the WSL and the salaries there, relative to men’s salaries, but also just relative to general salaries.

Megan Rapinoe (above) was the best soccer player in the world for a long time and ended up making like an average American wage for most of her career on the field. What she got off the field was what made the difference for her standard of living.

I don’t think that that’s really changed very much. I think what has changed is the opportunities for women in the endorsement space have gone way up.

We also have “name, image and likeness” here for women who play college sports. So that’s been a bit of a game changer as well, because then it extends that opportunity for making money through endorsements to another class of athlete.

But I don’t think it’s changed, and I don’t think honestly it’s going to change significantly in the short term.

In the WSL over here as well, they are always studying something else. And I read that Lo’eau LaBonta (below), who has become an even bigger star in the NWSL and now for the USWNT, has an engineering degree and had to take a pay cut in order to be a footballer

Yeah, I mean, there have always been stories like that… I do think they’re more common on the women’s side because again, if you play a professional sport as a man, generally you’re going to earn enough during your career to set you up, maybe not for life, but certainly for the next five, six years, to figure out what you’re doing.

Even if you’re a mid-level player, women either have to be earning at the very top of the sport to see that kind of cash through the endorsements – more than wages on the field – and then you’re not going to be set up for a long amount of time.

It really is more paycheck to paycheck, unless you can unlock those big-time endorsements.

That’s why women who get college scholarships in the US are more likely to use the degrees they earn, as opposed to the men who play in revenue-generating sports. That’s a bit of a difference, and I think that’s probably fairly universal even now.

Photo: Hameltion

When you look at someone like Billie Jean King and all her campaigning for equal pay etc, do you see any of the women in sport in the US now who are similarly on a mission?

Interesting question. I do, actually, 100%.

I think the reason you see so much buy-in of different teams, internationally, is that women want to invest in the legacy going forward and they finally have the money to be able to do it.

You have billionaires in the U.S., Clara Wu Tsai [owner of New York Liberty, Brooklyn Nets], Michele Kang [owner of Washington Spirit, OL Lyonnes, London City Lionesses], and Laura Ricketts [co-owner of the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago Stars] come to mind. I don’t know if Laura Ricketts is actually a billionaire, but people with money who are able to make the investment in women’s sports, well that’s a political decision as much as it’s a business decision.

It’s like, the wolf you feed, right? They want to feed the wolf that is women’s sport. So I think that’s a bit of a difference.

There’s a couple of really good quotes in your book from Jean Williams. This idea that men’s sport is seen as a really good thing for everything, the economy, the nation’s confidence… But whatever you give women is either a drain or charity.

Well, Jean is one of yours [British!] and she’s excellent. I’ve used her a couple of times for different stories I did when I was a columnist in the Daily News and Deadspin. Jean really helps me reframe it in that she was like, no, you have to understand like they didn’t create the economy that they’re facing.

Dave Berri [sports economist and professor] who I quote in the book, says that when you’re looking at women’s sports, men who’ve invested have traditionally said: well, it’s like widget making. I need to make 13 cents as a profit off of each widget or else it’s a failure.

Whereas with men’s sports, it’s, yeah, sure, we’ll build a stadium for some nebulous idea of how much money is being put into the local economy because of that. It’s just a completely different set of standards and there’s a lot of enthusiasm around because there was that emotional component.

And there hasn’t been the emotional component when it comes to women’s sports… But I think that’s changed. I think now you do see an emotional component there. It’s a bit nascent, but it’s definitely being created.

The idea of legacy being created in real time, the nostalgia component that is so important around men’s sports. The old stadiums, and all these ideas of the legacy, my father cheered for this team, that kind of thing. I think women’s sports are finally getting some of that as well.

Another thing about parity is the idea of fun, because playing sports is fun. When we’re at school, we have fun until we get to a certain age and then as women, we’re pushed into other stuff or we get body conscious.

The idea that women are able to have fun participating in and watching sports has always been sidelined or pushed to the back of the queue… and I wonder if there’s something to do with the kind of parity of fun?

Oh, I love that actually. I really do. That’s great because there’s this idea that – as a woman – you couldn’t be a card-carrying member of a fan base for many years.

You were adjacent. You knew you weren’t the one being spoken to. You weren’t being addressed.

When the announcers would talk about all the cute women in the audience, they were not talking about fans, they were objectifying them. Like: oh, they must be here with their boyfriends or to find a man or whatever. This very heteronormative way of looking at women as part of a crowd.

I think that has actually changed and that people, even just getting jerseys that are right-fitting for women and fit women’s frames, that kind of thing makes a difference. But now I do think that you’re allowed to be a fan in your own right.

I can remember growing up – and you may have had this experience as well – if I were ever to talk about like the Knicks or something, I’d be like: oh, John Starks, I can’t believe you can’t hit a f***ing three when it’s two minutes left in the playoffs.

People would be like: wow, you really know your stuff. And you’re like: I have eyes and watch a game, it’s not like this is some secret knowledge that I somehow got a hold of, like a witch… and now I don’t think it’s that way.

Now I think it’s part of the culture that everyone can participate in. So that’s a difference.

I think having access to joy is a bigger thing. And maybe sport is symbolic of the idea of women being able to access that in their lives?

I love that. I had not thought of that.

Also, there aren’t a lot of leagues for adult women and certainly weren’t when I was out of college and started working for a paper. One of the first stories I did was: where are all the adult leagues for women in the area?

There are a million people in Westchester, where I live. And there were two adult basketball leagues for women, very small. I played pickup and all that when I got out of school in the mid-90s.

And, it’s just that idea that women didn’t even have access to play as you get older. Men could go play soccer or tennis or whatever, but even if as a child you’d been active, women were somehow not expected to keep pursuing that.

I think you’re exactly right.

Jane McManus’ book, Fast Track: Inside the Surging Business of Women’s Sports, is published by Temple University Press