Emma Hayes has made history by securing the most lucrative contract of any women’s soccer head coach. Hayes was recently hired to lead the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team following the departure of former head coach, Vlatko Andonovski. While the specifics of her contract have not been fully released by U.S. Soccer, reports indicate Hayes is set to earn roughly $1.6 million per year through 2027. This amount matches the 2022 salary of Gregg Berhalter, the head coach of the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team.

Hayes is not alone in breaking records and securing a multi-million dollar contract. Across elite levels of sport, more women head coaches are signing lucrative deals that match or exceed their men counterparts. At the NCAA Division 1 level of women’s basketball, Kim Mulkey (LSU) and Dawn Staley (South Carolina) are in a league of their own, securing contracts that pay them $3.2 million and $2.7 million respectively.

Both Staley and Mulkey are earning almost twice as much as the next highest earning woman head coach, Brenda Frese (Maryland), who earns $1.4 million per year. Lisa Bluder (Iowa) and Adia Barnes (Arizona) round out the women head coaches in NCAA basketball earning $1 million per year salaries, with Becky Hammon of the WNBA also earning $1 million per year. All other women head coaches fall below the $1 million a year mark.

While these multi-million dollar contracts are becoming more frequent for women in head coaching roles, the low proportions of women in these positions of leadership across elite sport remain concerning. Across elite sport hiring, the WNBA has historically done the best job when it comes to equitable practices and typically maintains more women head coaches than men in recent seasons. In 2023, the league will have a record 9 women head coaches compared to 3 men. Beyond the WNBA however, leagues across both women’s and men’s elite sport are failing to hire and promote women coaches.

Since the passage of Title IX in 1972, there have been steady declines and stagnations in the proportions of women head coaches across collegiate sport. Currently, at the NCAA D1 level, women represent only 43%-46% of all head coaches of women’s programs. For men’s programs, women head coaches are essentially nonexistent outside of position coaches for co-ed programs such as track and field.

The failure to hire women as head coaches of men’s programs, all while consistently hiring men to lead women’s teams, further solidifies the underrepresentation of women in sport leadership overall. Research has aligned this phenomenon and the lack of women in head coaching roles of men’s teams to a glass wall, comparable to the glass ceiling. While women have held the highest positions across women’s elite sport, the glass wall represents a myriad of barriers holding women back from obtaining the high-profile, and more lucrative, head coaching positions of men’s elite teams. As a result, until hiring equity is achieved across all of sport, the recent record breaking contracts for women head coaches will still not ascend to the levels of their men counterparts.