Since the 1970’s, female athletes have made remarkable progress in realizing gender equity with their male counterparts, the notable exception being financial compensation at the professional level. In virtually every sport, women playing professional sports have never earned close to what men do. In terms of earning power, equal opportunity for women in sports has been like climbing Mount Everest - a long, difficult struggle to reach the top and once there, those successful find nothing but snow and ice.

Since salaries of professional athletes are based primarily on sports attendance, television ratings, and merchandising, this unequal compensation can’’t be remedied legislatively or judicially as might happen in other professions. Only so much can be done if more people prefer to watch Kobe Bryant rather than Candace Parker play basketball, which accounts for the disparity in their incomes (although after Kobe’’s performance against the Celtics in the NBA Finals, maybe that disparity shouldn’’t be as wide). Jackie Joyner Kersee, one of the world’s greatest female athletes, summarized it, ““Women in sports now receive equal recognition. But they still have to work twice a hard as men to be recognized””.

In the 2008 Olympics, a new factor has entered the equation –globalization. The dark underside of money and politics, perpetually a part of the Games, has generated a conflict between economic security and national loyalty. An American woman from the Midwestern heartland will play basketball for Russia. Meanwhile, a star men’’s player from a former Soviet satellite republic can’t play for his country due to his lucrative American contract.

Becky Hammon, a 10-year WNBA star and last season’s MVP runner-up, earns the maximum league salary, about $95,000. But Hammon wasn’t named to USA Basketball’s original list of 23 female candidates for an Olympic tryout last fall. She received a belated invitation but was aware her chances of making the team weren’’t good. At 31, she realized this might be her last chance to play in the Olympics. Soon afterward, the Russian National Team approached her with an offer to play for Russia. Initially, she declined. “No, I can’t play for the Russians,’” she recalled. “Never did it cross my mind it would be Russia across my chest.

But, as the saying goes, America is the land of opportunity. In March, CSKA, a Russian professional club came back and offered her one of the most lucrative contracts in women’’s basketball, $2 million over four years, to play for them after the WNBA season. The deal had another aspect - Hammon, a former Miss Basketball of South Dakota, who is not Russian, doesn’’t reside in Russia, and speaks no Russian, was granted Russian citizenship making her eligible to represent Russia at the Olympics. She will receive an extra $250,000 if the Russians win the gold medal and $150, 000 if they win silver.

“I’m going where they really want me and where I have an opportunity to win a medal,” Hammon said. Forced to choose between the slim chance of making the U.S. Olympic team and a guaranteed $2 million contract along with being able to play in the Olympics, Hammon reasoned, “Why should I take that chance for a really, really long shot and pass up four years of playing over in Russia? I couldn’t do that financially.” Deemed unpatriotic by some of her American teammates and coaches, her attitude is understandable. Realistically how many of us would turn down that offer?

Another basketball player possibly looking at his last chance to play in the Olympics may not be as lucky. 33 year-old Zydrunas Ilgauskas currently makes nearly $11 million playing center for the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers. His injury history prevented the team from obtaining sufficient insurance coverage so the Cavaliers have denied Ilgauskas permission to play for his native Lithuania, traditionally a strong basketball competitor, in the Olympics. (His teammate, Cavaliers’ superstar LeBron James, will play for the USA). “Zydrunas is an important member of our team and has generally been a higher risk player due to his injury history,” Cavs general manager Danny Ferry said. “We declined consent for Zydrunas.”

Without one of their stars, the Lithuanian men will be at a competitive disadvantage in medal play. Ilgauskas regrets this, “I respect (the Cavaliers’’ decision). But at the same time, it’s my country. It’s my last chance. I hope things will work out.”
Content with $11 million, Ilgauskas may have watch from the stands. But if the Russian women’’s team and Becky Hammon are successful, American female basketball players may have more future offers to succeed in a global economy. Only the flag they plant at the top of Everest might not be the Stars and Stripes.

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