Brandi Rhodes Discusses How Equal Pay For Men And Women Will Work In AEW
All Elite Wrestling held their second big announcement party in as many months last night as Las Vegas hosted their Double or Nothing Ticket Announcement Party. As part of the festivities, Chief Brand Officer Brandi Rhodes held a press conference in which she discussed a number of topics including equal pay for AEW male and female wrestlers.
Wrestling Inc. was on hand and we asked Rhodes to elaborate about the base pay for an incoming talent to AEW.
"Obviously I'm under NDAs so I can't tell you how much people make," said Rhodes. "So, if you're someone coming straight from the indies, maybe you haven't been on television for a while ? if you're male or female, you're starting at the same spot.
"If you're someone who has been on tv for a while and maybe you've been a champion at a company? there's a lot of players who look the same whether they're male or female. So, they start at the same spot."
Rhodes then shared situations from her history in wrestling in which female talent at one level was paid less than male talent at a lower level.
"At places I've worked before, no matter what, you start at this [set level of pay] or this is your weekly or your per show," stated Rhodes. "But then if you talk to a man, the per show is completely different and they may be a man who's never been on tv before.
"I've worked for a company where I had a pay that was okay, but it was way below pays of people who had never been on tv before. I've been in this industry for a long time and worked for some of the top companies, so why is that? So that's something we really didn't want to do. We're achieving that and it's going really good right now. Everybody seems to be really happy so we're gonna keep going."
Rhodes' statement jibes with a tweet she sent out last month regarding equal pay in which she stated there would be no gender pay gap for people on equal levels. She also said that doesn't mean everyone will be paid the same, but that people of the same stature would be paid the same regardless of gender.