The sports industry has come a long way in terms of establishing its feat as a lucrative industry. The number of viewers has increased manifold; the amount of money generated by the sporting events is tremendous. With the professional athletes signing hefty endorsement cheques, the industry has become more glamorous and demanding.
We will come across the topics such as pay disparity based on gender, fewer facilities for female athletes, prize money disparity, and poor media coverage for women's sports but not many people talk about the topic of maternity leave. To establish gender equity in sports, motherhood and maternity leave should also be considered. Every professional female athlete encounters a point in their lives where they have to choose between their sports career and motherhood. That shouldn't be the case, right?
The whole discussion about maternity leave and motherhood came to light when Serena Williams resumed her sporting career after giving birth to a baby girl, Alexis Ohanian Jr. Serena was ranked No.1 when she stopped playing. She returned to the sport with a ranking of No. 453! In tennis, rankings are very important as the matches are designed in the top-seeded vs the bottom-seeded players' format. So she had to play against her finals or semi-finals opponent in the first round itself to qualify for the tournament! It was devasting to see that there wasn't any fair maternity leave policy to protect the hard-earned ranking. In 2017, Williams was the only woman in the Forbes Top 100 Highest paid athletes but after her maternity leave, she was no longer on the list in 2018.
Serena Williams in her comeback match
Luckily the times are changing now. The Professional Triathletes Organisation announced the Maternity leave policy for women PTO (Professional Triathletes Organisation) Professionals on 17th November 2020. Under this policy, a women PTO can take 15 months of maternity leave. During the maternity leave, their PTO World Ranking will be fixed and they will be paid monthly payments based on 100% of the PTO Annual Bonus Plan. For example, under the current Annual Bonus Plan, women PTO professional ranked World No. 5 would receive a $60,000 bonus payment at the end of a calendar year. If she becomes pregnant and decides to take 15 months maternity leave, then she shall be paid $5,000 per month for 15 months, totalling $75,000!
WNBA- Women's National Basketball Association also announced the fully paid maternity leave and a significant increase in the salaries for the development of female players. In January 2020, they released an agreement which stated that the players would receive an average salary of $130,000 (NBA players earn $7 million on average each year) and the parents in WNBA will also have a child-care stipend of $5,000 along with two-bedroom apartments guaranteed by the league.
Even FIFA will introduce compulsory 14 weeks of maternity leave for the development of women's football!
Alex Morgan (in white) resumed her career after maternity leave.
Professional athletes earn a significant amount of money from endorsements. Many brands pull their endorsement from female athletes when they are not able to participate in leagues or tournaments because of pregnancy. Eventually, when the athletes started being vocal about the severe lapses in the contracts that contradicted their women empowerment tag lines, things started changing-changing for good.
I came across the journey of Allyson Felix while listening to the- Just Women's sports podcast. Allyson Felix, six-time Olympic gold Medallist, the 11-time world champion who was denied maternity protections in her contract with Nike. She joined Olympic runners Kara Goucher and Alysia Montano and started speaking out about the lack of maternity protection in the athletes' contracts. The movement was initiated by Montano, who had earned the nickname "the pregnant runner" after she participated in the women's 800 meters- almost eight months pregnant at the 2014 U.S.A Track and Field Outdoor championships. On learning about her pregnancy, Nike stopped her sponsorship deal until she started racing again. The other two runners faced the same issue as well-they were financially penalized by Nike during their pregnancies.
This movement gathered a lot of momentum. Many people started questioning the sportswear giant and desperately wanted the actual reason for such discrepancies in the contracts. To pacify the public outcry, Nike made changes in the contracts to increase the financial protection for pregnant athletes and new mothers!
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