The following is a guest column by Jordan I Kobritz, a staff member of the Business of Sports Network. – Maury Brown

When Danica Patrick won the Indy Japan 300 two weeks ago, she accomplished something Dale Earnhardt, Jr. hasn’t been able to do in two years: Win a motorsports race.

But there is one thing Junior does that leaves Patrick in his exhaust. Junior is a veritable marketing machine, ranking third on the list of athlete endorsers with earnings in excess of $25 million last year, according to Forbes. Patrick earned $5 million, which put her fifth on the list of female endorsers, behind Maria Sharapova, Michelle Wie, Serena Williams and Annika Sorenstam.

Why the disparity between men and women endorsers? There are a number of factors. Women are still viewed as sex symbols, rather than athletes. In fact, Patrick leads Junior 1-0 in another, more dubious, category: Appearances in Sports Illustrated’s annual swim suit issue. (Note: There’s no evidence Patrick received a shot of HGH to enhance her profile, ala Debbie Clemens.)

There’s also the fact that most sports fans are men. But that majority – 60-40 in motorsports, for example – does not account for the difference in endorsement earnings between the sexes, a chasm that is deeper and wider than the Grand Canyon.

Another often whispered and seldom acknowledged fear among corporations is the “lesbian factor,” which is more often than not a death knell for the female athlete as endorser. Even in the 21^st century, successful women athletes confront the presumption that their testosterone levels exceed their estrogen levels. That presumption has been perpetuated for decades and is reinforced by the Jan Stephenson’s (golf) and Anna Kornikova’s (tennis) of the world – women athletes who weren’t successful on the field of play, but by exploiting their physical assets, proved to be more successful endorsers than their colleagues.

Tennis star Maria Sharapova has dispelled that belief, at least to some extent. The Russian beauty raked in the most endorsement money last year, $23 million according to Forbes, while also holding down the #1 ranking in her sport early in the year.

Patrick isn’t alone in the paucity of endorsement money earned by female athletes. Lorena Ochoa, the leading money winner on the LPGA Tour last year with $4.4 million in earnings, has accomplished something not even Tiger Woods has done, winning ten tournaments in fifteen starts. But while Tiger leads all athlete endorsers, earning in excess of $100 million per year, Ochoa’s $10 million in off-the-course income comes mainly from endorsements in her native Mexico.

Unlike Patrick, the 26-year-old Ochoa hasn’t posed for SI, doesn’t thirst for the limelight, and allows her brother, Alejandro, who resides in Guadalajara, to negotiate her sponsorship deals, rather than aligning herself with a U.S. marketing firm.

A bigger test for the strength of female endorsers looms on the horizon. Candace Parker, the star of Tennessee’s women’s basketball team, recently signed a professional contract with the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA. Parker is talented, having led the Lady Vols to two national championships, well-known even before playing her first professional game, good-looking, and…ahem… presumed to be heterosexual. She’s engaged to former Duke star Sheldon Williams, who currently plays for the NBA’s Sacramento Kings. Parker recently signed her first two endorsement deals, multi-million dollar agreements with Gatorade and Adidas. More sponsorship opportunities are sure to follow.

Regardless of whether a female athlete is born in the U.S. or in a foreign country, takes off her clothes or keeps them on, plays golf or drives a race car, she still lags her male counterpart in endorsement revenue by tens of millions of dollars. Perhaps we are merely witnessing the evolution of the perception of women from wives, mothers and homemakers, to athletes, and ultimately, to endorsers.

Or maybe the corporate world is populated by too many male decision makers who aren’t convinced that female athletes can move product. Perhaps Parker will be the first to prove she can sell as much product as her male counterparts. If that happens, she should expect to be compensated as much as a man.

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