Women’s sports are trying to make childcare a priority for its athletes.
Basketball player Chelsea Gray arrived in January at training camp in Florida for Unrivaled’s new three-on-three league — with her wife and infant son in tow.
The league had arranged for game-day childcare with vetted nannies and provided an on-site playroom, nursery, and nursing room. That meant Gray’s wife, Tipesa Gray, could watch the games and duck into the playroom at halftime to check on Lennox.
“We were just like, ‘there’s no way,'” Gray told Business Insider, “feeling like we can have this much access.”
The league is one of several women’s sports expanding childcare benefits for athletes. Women athletes once faced a difficult choice: pursue their careers, which typically required long hours, lots of travel, and low pay, or be parents. The industry wasn’t set up to support mothers. That’s starting to change.
Unrivaled, for one, is trying to set a new bar with its childcare package for players and league staff. Its cofounders, WNBA stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, made childcare a priority. The playroom is stocked with toys, comfy couches, and of course, a mini basketball hoop. Other areas have a crib and changing table and a small, quiet room for nursing.
When designing the space, Unrivaled wanted to ease the mind of players with families so they could focus on the game.
Clare Duwelius, Unrivaled’s executive vice president and general manager, told BI the league wanted to make the kids “feel comfortable while their parents are hard at work here too.”
Some WNBA teams offer family services, including the Minnesota Lynx, which contracts a company to provide on-site day care. Athletes Unlimited, which operates women’s leagues, offers a stipend for childcare while players travel and other benefits on a case-by-case basis, according to its annual report. The Ladies Professional Golf Association was one of the first women’s leagues to provide childcare. It started in the 1990s, complete with nannies and areas for children to play while their mothers spent long hours on the golf course or practicing.
Athletes have also fought for more support. WNBA players negotiated a $5,000 annual stipend for childcare in their 2020 collective bargaining agreement. The National Women’s Soccer League contract guarantees parents either a stipend or childcare supervision paid for by their team, according to the league and its players association,
The cost of childcare is high in the US. In 2022, the median price of full-day care was between $6,552 and $15,600, according to the National Database of Childcare Prices.
Support for working parents has been a growing topic across sports. The men’s and women’s national soccer teams bargained together for equal pay in 2022, and folded childcare into both their contracts. More NFL teams have invested in day care programs and family rooms, as well.
“Childcare isn’t a women’s issue only,” said Victoria Jackson, a sports historian and professor at Arizona State University. “Childcare is an every parent issue.”
Women athletes once faced a tough choice
Childcare has changed a lot for mothers in all professions. Sports, in particular, had a lot of catching up to do.
Bonnie Morris, a women’s sports historian and professor at UC Berkeley, told BI that sports were once considered harmful to women’s bodies.
“The problem in a lot of people’s minds is that women’s peak reproductive years are the same as her peak athletic years,” Morris said. “So there’s the idea that you have to make a choice.”
US Soccer Hall of Famer Joy Fawcett recalled her time as a new mother and professional athlete in the 1990s.
After giving birth to her first child, Fawcett returned to play less than eight weeks later. She traveled to Minnesota for the Olympic Sports Festival. The US Women’s National Team stayed in dorm rooms at a local college, but Fawcett was told her baby could not stay there. She couldn’t breastfeed on campus either.
“I’m there, and I don’t have a lot of money, and I’m like, shoot, ‘what am I going to do?'” Fawcett said. “Totally freaking out.”
Fawcett and her daughter stayed with a woman volunteering at the event who opened up her home to them. Over time, Fawcett figured out a system for her and her kids when she traveled for games.
But she still worried about keeping her spot on the national team.
“How do you stay in shape? How do I stay fit? There was no information out there, hardly,” Fawcett said. “I didn’t want to lose my spot. I knew I would have to earn it to stay on the team.”
The LPGA began offering childcare for its professional golfers in 1993, sponsored by Smuckers. Today, it’s still free for athletes to use. The childcare trailer travels to each tournament, set up with cribs and a play area stocked with toys in the exact same way each week to keep it consistent for the kids.
Golfer Stacy Lewis said she uses the tour’s childcare for her six-year-old daughter upward of nine hours a day, six days a week.
“It was important to me to have my daughter see what I do,” Lewis said. “She’s seen firsthand that it’s hard work.”
There are still challenges to being an athlete-mother
While leagues like Unrivaled have made strides in improving the childcare system, some athletes say there is more that can be done to support them.
At the collegiate level, the NCAA doesn’t formally offer any kind of childcare support, but some colleges and universities do for students. Others are filling the gaps. Sara Vaughn, a former collegiate athlete who juggled parenting her daughter while competing in track, founded the Vaughn Childcare Fund to provide financial assistance to parents so they can continue to go to school or play sports without having to worry about paying for childcare.
Some WNBA players, like Gray, also say the league’s $5,000 childcare stipend players negotiated for doesn’t go far enough.
“That’s usually eaten up in the first half of the summer,” Gray said. The league’s regular season typically runs from May to September.
Gray said Unrivaled offers a comparable stipend to the WNBA but provides game-day care on top of it, so the money seems to go further for its athletes.
The WNBA Players’ Association has already decided to opt out of its collective bargaining agreement, which ends with the 2025 season. There have been rumblings among players of a potential lockout over salaries.
Childcare could also be in the conversation.
“Luckily for me, I do have a wife who is able to be there when I am not, but what about those players that do not have somebody that can be there 24/7?” Gray said.
The WNBA did not respond to a request for comment from BI.
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