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Tennis legend Martina Navratilova has made an apparent pay gap her latest opponent.
After seeing fellow tennis champion John McEnroe on a list of highest-paid broadcasting talent at the BBC, Navratilova said she is paid a fraction of his salary for covering the U.K. Wimbledon tennis tournament. McEnroe reportedly makes between 150,000 pounds and 199,999 pounds ($210,000 to $280,000), while Navratilova makes about 15,000 pounds ($21,000) for her coverage of the tournament.
Navratilova said it’s hard to compare salaries because different commentators work for different amounts of time, but she was “shocked” that the difference between her salary and McEnroe’s, she told the BBC television show “Panorama.”
This is the latest in a string of high-profile examples of gender pay gaps from Hollywood to Wall Street. The removal of Kevin Spacey from the movie “All the Money in the World” required actors to reshoot the movie, but actor Mark Wahlberg received $1.5 million for the reshoot, while co-star Michelle Williams received less than $1,000. Women also make 59 cents on the dollar compared to men at HSBC HSBC, -0.32% in the U.K.
Women who work at the main location for Goldman Sachs GS, -1.89% in the U.K. make 36% less than men, according to data released this month. Goldman said it has “significant work to do.” Median bonus pay for men was also more than 67% larger than that of women at Goldman.
In the U.S., women’s weekly earnings are about 83% of what men make per week, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Part of the reason: Women are steering clear of industries they don’t think will be supportive of them, which many times lead to higher-paid professions, according to a study in the American Educational Research Journal. And, in other cases, some managers appear to simply pay women less for the same job.
Navratilova, meanwhile, said she is “not happy.” Although covering Wimbledon is a part-time job for Navratilova, a pay gap for other women at the network would make her angry, she said. “It’s extremely unfair.”
A spokesperson from the BBC said McEnroe appeared 30 times for the BBC at Wimbledon last year, compared to 10 appearances for Navratilova. There are more differences in their roles, the spokesman said.
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McEnroe cannot work for another U.K. broadcaster without the BBC’s permission, and Navratilova is paid per appearance and has no contractual commitment to the BBC. McEnroe worked on live matches, as well as filmed sequences, publicity work and regular studio segments.
“John and Martina perform different roles in the team, and John’s role is of a different scale, scope and time commitment,” the spokesman said. “They are simply not comparable.”
Earlier this year, the BBC hired consultants from PricewaterhouseCoopers to create a report about pay at the network, according to The Telegraph. It found that 188 roles needed an “upward pay adjustment,” the paper said, 98 of them held by men and 90 by women.
Several high-paid men at BBC News accepted pay cuts. When all the pay adjustments happen, which the BBC expects should happen by the end of the summer, that should “reduce the gender pay gap,” the BBC said in a statement. An editor at the network quit in January over gender pay disparities.