Huge news for the push for pay equality in Australian sport today, with the news that the NSW Breakers in the domestic women’s cricket competition are set to become Australia’s first-ever fully-professional women’s domestic sport team, thanks to a bumper pay rise for their players.
Cricket NSW announced that moving forward, all players in the squad will be on full-time contracts, with marquee players and players pulling double duty for the Australian national team able to earn in excess of $100,000 annually.
The Breakers minimum wage for low-tier full-time players will now be raised to $35,000 per annum. This eclipses both the new National Netball League‘s minimum wage of $27,375 annually, and the AFL Women‘s basement wage of just $5,000 (or roughly $32,500 pro rata).
Cricket NSW revealed that the bumper pay-rise and historical move is the result of securing a massive new major sponsorship deal with construction company Lendlease.
The pay-rise sees player salaries for the team almost double, in a move that Cricket NSW chief executive Andrew Jones described as being a landmark moment in the continued renaissance of women’s sport in Australia.
“I am confident that every state in Australia will now follow the lead of Cricket NSW by giving their female cricketers the opportunity to earn a living wage.”
Meanwhile Breakers player Ashleigh Gardner stated that the pay rise is, simply put, life-changing.
“Cricket has always been my passion, however I never really thought that I would be able to play professionally. In the back of my mind I was always having to consider how I needed to juggle school work, studies, one day having a job and a family, with my training and matches.”
Today’s announcement follows on from the news back in April that Cricket Australia would nearly double the cash pool for women’s domestic and international payments, meaning that top-line Australian contracted players would now earn a minimum of $80,000 plus match fees annually.
Photo: Tony Feder – CA/Getty.
