What AEW's equal pay means

AEW's rally in Jacksonville, Florida, was a huge success. At the time of writing, the video on YouTube has been viewed over 300,000 times. The rally featured some huge announcements, the biggest of which was the reveal of Chris Jericho.

Brandi Rhodes was announced as AEW's Chief Branding Officer, and took to the stage to announce equal pay for male and female talent. She said,

"We care about our women, they are top talent, so they will be paid equally, there's no sliding scale"

Some people seemed to not understand exactly what she meant, with many fans thinking that the female talent would be making the same money as top-level male talent like Chris Jericho.

Brandi took to Twitter earlier today to clarify her statement:

Equal pay means equal opportunity regardless of sex. It does not mean that everyone will be paid the exact same salary regardless of their position. It means the gender pay gap does not apply. An entry level woman won’t make less than an entry level man because of her gender.
— Brandi Rhodes (@TheBrandiRhodes) January 9, 2019

For example, female wrestlers like Britt Baker and Penelope Ford will probably make the same level of money as MJF and Joey Janela.

Wrestlers are usually paid by their "drawing power". The higher you are on the card, and the more people you attract, the more you get paid. For Example, Charlotte Flair is one of the biggest stars in WWE's women's division.

She earns a reported US$550,000 a year. Only Ronda Rousey earns more, a reported US$1.5 million a year. This is due to her name value outside of WWE, and her ability to draw more eyes to the product.

The lowest paid female wrestlers in WWE make a reported US$80,000 a year (Mandy Rose, Ruby Riott, and Sarah Logan). This is where the problem is apparent. Lower level male talent like Curtis Axel and Curt Hawkins make around US$200,000 a year.

That is a very large gap. Now, one could argue that Mandy Rose, Ruby Riott, and Sarah Logan do not attract fans to the product, and that they are there to make up the numbers. That may be the case, but neither does Curt Hawkins and Curtis Axel.

Another reason may be how long they have been on the main roster. Rose, Riott, and Logan only debuted last year, whereas Axel has been on the main roster since 2010. Their pay may be increased over the next year or two.

I hope this has cleared up some of the confusion around the equal pay announcement. I for one am happy that more opportunities are being created for male and female talent. Wrestling is a dangerous job, and the performers should be paid accordingly.