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That said, I think there's a much better argument that the jobs of men's and women's officials are the same than saying the jobs of men's and women's coaches are the same.
**Correction/Letal Revelation** - Perhaps you could back me up on this one, womens_hoops - pay parity laws would require that a male or female working the same level would have to be paid the same, and doesn't apply to the gender of the job. (A little bit of introduction to Title IX in soc. classes can be a dangerous thing. :-p) [/B]
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This isn't my area of expertise, and I have only done cursory research, but my basic thought is:
Suppose Ref-A is a woman and Ref-B is a man. If Ref-A and Ref-B both ref in the men's game, and if they both have comparable experience, etc., then you have to pay them the same under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which applies to all employers.
If, however, Ref-A works in the women's game and Ref-B works in the men's game... it's a little less clear to me that Title VII would require parity. The employer (assuming that there'e one employer covering both games) could argue that different salary levels were based not on the the employee's gender, but rather on some other non-discriminatory factor (men's game is more profitable, more challenging, or it's a more competitive hiring environment so you have to pay more, or something).
I'm really not sure how the latter case would turn out. Seems like you could argue it either way.
In practice, it seems like most schools/conferences would want to pay the same anyway, possibly just because they think it's the right thing to do. And schools (especially state schools) might have additional requirements from state law that go above and beyond federal law.
(I'm not clear whether Title IX applies to this stuff at all. Title IX applies only to educational institutions receiving federal funds. It's unclear whether it has any application to the NCAA and conferences, which don't receive federal funds. I was actually looking at this the other day with respect to the mascot thing -- that's a Title VI issue, and it's similar to Title IX, and there's some case law saying that while it applies to schools, it doesn't apply to the NCAA.)
I guess that's a long way of saying: I'm not totally sure what the law requires.
Which is part of why I was wondering whether folks here know whether, for any reason, refs on the women's side make less or the same as on the men's side.
I heard today, incidentally, that refs in the WNBA get about $750 per game, which someone said is about the same as D1 tournament play. I think the WNBA refs (unlike the NBA refs) don't have a Collective Bargaining Agreement, and so don't have regular salaries.
I'm not really sure how many games the typical WNBA ref works, but with only 34 games per team in the season, it probably ends up to be quite a bit less than NBA refs.