Are they paid the same? Are they the same level of famous? I don't really watch basketball, but I don't think they are, and a "they are not as good as men" bias could very well be at play here.

The economics of sports are dominated by one factor, the size of the audience. If women started to watch female sports in anywhere near the numbers men watch male sports then the economics would change.

As it stands, women are just not as interested in watching sports as men are, with some exceptions like figure skating and gymnastics.

This leads to a couple of questions: Why do men prefer to watch men sports, why do women prefer to not watch sports, and is the "watch same gender preference" the same for men and women? For the latter, my impression is that women mostly prefer to watch men teams too.

Also, the audience=the customer, so isn't this true for almost all fields? If we are OK with wildly different pay scales in sports because of audience preference, couldn't Hollywood claim the same?

>If we are OK with wildly different pay scales in sports because of audience preference, couldn't Hollywood claim the same?

Isn't that the way it is though, movie stars are paid tons more than the rest ?