According to a BBC study, most sports now offer equal prizemoney for top level male and female athletes.

The survey received responses from 48 sports, with 37 of those offering some form of prizemoney.

This is the third edition of the study, which was carried out in 2014 and 2017.

Notably, cricket has taken the biggest steps towards closing their gender pay gap, with ‘The Hundred’ tournament held in the UK later this year to offer equal prizemoney in the men’s and women’s competitions.

The success of the 2020 Women’s T20 World Cup and Women’s Big Bash League in Australia was important to these developments, according to the study.

2022 Women’s Cricket World Cup will now feature a prize pool of USD$3.5 million (AUD$4.6 million).

In 2017 the total prize pot was USD$2 million (AUD$2.6 million), compared to the total pot of USD$10 million (AUD$13 million) in the men’s tournament.

Despite these changes in cricket, sports such as football, basketball, and golf feature the biggest gaps in prizemoney.

Football has the biggest difference in prizemoney out of all the sports surveyed.

The US women’s national team won USD$4 million (AUD$5.2 million), at the 2019 World Cup, compared to France men’s winnings of US$38 million (AUD$49.5 million)  in 2018.

FIFA intends to continue to increase women’s prizemoney though, having doubled the prizemoney from the 2015 tournament in 2019, with plans to double again for the 2023 edition.

The 2018 World Cup’s prize total was nine times larger than the female equivalent, despite having a projected overall total audience reach of roughly 3.5 billion, which was three times larger than the women’s tournament in 2019.

BBC also confirmed that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a surprisingly minimal impact on finance in sport, with prizemoney largely unaffected.

The 2021 Australian Open, for example, saw the overall prize pot increased, despite the winner’s payout decreasing by 33% compared to 2020.

This was done to increase the money won by lower-ranked players exiting in earlier rounds, whose income had been reduced by COVID-19.