We love playing and watching all kinds of sports, but we always find it a shame how few sporting opportunities are afforded to women. In this series we showcase Team Patata's professional athletes, representing a variety of sports.
While researching for this project, we found some interesting facts about women in sport, and have included a few below...
In 1920, a women’s football game in Liverpool attracted a crowd of 53,000 spectators with another 15,000 turned away because the ground was full. Women’s football was so popular that the FA, feeling threatened, decided to ban women from playing on their grounds because football ‘damaged women’s bodies’. This ban wasn’t lifted until 1971 and women’s football continues to suffer as a result.
In 2017 Forbes calculated that Women NBA paid no more than 22.8% of its revenue to it's players, whilst the NBA pays theirs on average more than 50%. According to Forbes, WNBA player Jonquel Jones was paid $47,774 in 2016 when, based on her performance, she should have earned $1.15 million.
The All American Girls Professional Baseball League started in 1943. All player were enrolled in charm school and required to act in a ‘lady-like manner’. They could only wear skirts or dresses, always had to wear lipstick and could not have short hair. Players could not consume liquor and they couldn’t move without permission. Despite this, by 1954 ten teams had been formed with over one million fans watching them play.
