On International Women’s Day, March 8, brands and organisations line up to share their messages of inspiration, celebration and to champion women’s rights and achievements. But this year a Twitter bot was to cause a series of upsets by embarrassing these companies with their own data on their gender pay gap.
When an organisation tweeted about its equality credentials @PayGapApp unceremoniously tweeted it back with the percentage difference between its hourly pay rates for men and women.
The campaign went viral, with many surprised at how stark some of the disparities were /are, and how many organisations were ‘talking the talk’, but not necessarily ‘walking the walk’ when it came to levelling the playing field.
Women’s sport has been in the headlines this summer with the UEFA Women’s Euros and the Tour de France Femmes dominating thanks to a huge growth in mainstream interest; 17.4 million people watched the Euro 2022 final between England and Germany – the most watched women’s soccer match ever in the UK. Along with this increased visibility has come discussion within the wider sports and advertising industry about sponsorship and how well (or poorly) brands have invested and leveraged women’s sport. According to one survey only 46 per cent of UK adults could name a women’s sport sponsor – but is the tide slowly turning?
For those that have invested in women’s sport, what would the @PayGapApp tweet about them? And if we were to conduct due diligence on their equality credentials, what would it flag up? We’ve researched several of the most prominent sponsors of women’s sport to test exactly that.
Data is for the period 2021-2022 unless stated.
Nike (UK)
Sponsors: UEFA Women’s Euro 2022
Median hourly pay difference: -2.5 per cent
In real terms: women earn 98p for every £1 men earn
Percentage of women in top jobs: women occupy 44 per cent of the highest paid jobs and 58 per cent of the lowest paid jobs
Other considerations of note:
- Nike has been involved in women’s football since 1993, when it signed US player Mia Hamm in an endorsement deal
- Nike is facing a class-action lawsuit in the US after former female employees who worked in the corporate headquarters claimed that the company violated the Equal Pay Act by engaging in systemic gender pay discrimination and ignoring rampant sexual harassment. The company has been accused of fostering a ‘boys club culture’. If the class action is successful, it will proceed on behalf of roughly 5,000 women who have worked at Nike’s headquarters since October 2017
- In 2019 Olympian runners Alysia Montano, Phoebe Wright and Kara Goucher broke their non-disclosure agreements and spoke to The New York Times about how Nike had cut their sponsorship deals after they’d announced their pregnancies. In some cases this pay cut had forced them back into sport too soon after giving birth
- Allyson Felix, America’s most decorated track and field athlete in Olympic history, called out Nike after it declined her request to contractually guarantee that she wouldn’t be punished if she didn’t perform her best in the months surrounding childbirth. She ultimately left Nike for another sponsor
- After a public outcry, Nike announced a new maternity policy for sponsored athletes
Adidas (UK)
Sponsors: UEFA Women’s Champions League and Women’s Euro 2022
Median hourly pay difference: -11.4 per cent
In real terms: women earn 89p for every £1 men earn
Percentage of women in top jobs: women occupy 38.9 per cent of the highest paid jobs and 42.2 per cent of the lowest paid jobs
Other considerations of note:
- In 2019 Adidas announced that it would pay its sponsored players on the Women’s World Cup-winning soccer team the same bonus as their male counterparts for the Women’s World Cup
Barclays
Sponsors: Women’s Super League (WSL)
Median hourly pay difference: -34.5 per cent
In real terms: women earn 66p for every £1
Percentage of women in top jobs: women occupy 18 per cent of the highest paid jobs and 56 per cent of the lowest paid jobs
Other considerations of note:
- Barclays was the first title sponsor of the Barclays FA Women’s Super League and the first brand to sponsor the leading English leagues in both men’s and women’s football
- Barclays claims that it was responsible for hiring the UK’s first ever female bank manager in the 1950s
- While the financial services industry is notoriously poor when it comes to closing the gender pay gap (median average gap is 26.6 per cent compared to the 12.1 per cent across the wider UK market), Barclays’ pay gap remains wider still
Tiktok
Sponsors: Women’s Six Nations, Women’s Euro 2022
Median hourly pay difference: -30.3 per cent
In real terms: women earn 70p for every £1
Percentage of women in top jobs: women occupy 42.9 per cent of the highest paid jobs and 68.1 per cent of the lowest paid jobs
Other considerations of note:
- A campaign called #PayFair coinciding with Women’s Euro 2022 called out the major sponsors of the tournament for “cheering women on the pitch, but quietly underpaying their female staff behind the scenes”. TikTok was included in this
Booking.com
Sponsors: Women’s Euro 2022,
Median hourly pay difference: -41.8 per cent
In real terms: women earn 58p for every £1
Percentage of women in top jobs: women occupy 16 per cent of the highest paid jobs and 56 per cent of the lowest paid jobs
Other considerations of note:
- Booking.com had the largest pay gap out of all the Women’s Euro 2022 sponsors
- In 2017, the then female CEO of Booking.com, Gillian Tans, opposed government intervention to force businesses to close the gender pay gap, citing that enforced quotas could lead to fewer women reaching senior roles. She said the issue needed to be addressed within the tech sector
Lego
Sponsors: Women’s Euro 2022
Median hourly pay difference: -25.7 per cent
In real terms: women earn 74p for every £1
Percentage of women in top jobs: women occupy 44 per cent of the highest paid jobs and 56 per cent of the lowest paid jobs
Other considerations of note:
- A report commissioned by Lego stated that children are held back by embedded gender stereotypes. Lego responded by pledging to remove gender stereotypes from its all toys
Vitality
Sponsors: Women’s FA Cup, women and men’s 20- over cricket (Vitality IT20s), England Netball Team
Median hourly pay difference: -12.1 per cent
In real terms: women earn 88p for every £1
Percentage of women in top jobs: women occupy 40 per cent of the highest paid jobs and 52% of the lowest paid jobs
Other considerations of note:
- In the workplace Vitality has introduced:
- Child-minding and menopause support benefits for employees
- Targets for female appointments at senior levels, and increased the percentage of women in senior roles
- Enhanced and equalised parental leave entitlements
- Recruitment and selection practices that source more talented women, including promoting flexible working options
Zwift
Sponsors: Tour de France Femme
Median hourly pay difference: data not available
In real terms: data not available
Percentage of women in top jobs: data not available
Other considerations of note:
- This year Zwift was the main sponsor of the first official women’s Tour de France in over 30 years
- The prize money was set at €250,000 – the largest sum in women’s cycling racing history.
- However, some argued that this was paltry compared to the €2.3 million which were awarded to the men’s teams and riders – including €500,000 to the winner of the final individual general classification.
- Cycling activist Kathryn Bertine, who had spent years lobbying Amaury Sports Organisation (ASO) – the organisers of the Tour de France Femmes – said: “It’s insulting that they [ASO] are promoting this as the biggest prize money ever and it’s only one tenth of the men’s prize purse. Record prize money cannot be a band-aid for the fact that if it isn’t equal, it isn’t equal.”
As we can see from this small selection of sponsors, the gender pay gap still very much dominates even though some of these companies are taking steps to improve employment equality within their own organisations. But as the @PayGapApp and #PayFair campaigns have shown, it’s important that high-profile individuals, athletes, clubs and events, assess potential sponsors to see if their values align in order to mitigate reputational risk by association.
