Skip to content Skip to search

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/
Sign up for our newsletter

Menu

  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships
    • From the Collection

      Changing Child Care

      Illustration of a woman feeding a baby a bottle
      • 1 in 4 parents report being fired for work interruptions due to child care breakdowns

        Chabeli Carrazana · February 2
      • Washington, D.C., offers financial relief to local child care workers

        Orion Rummler · September 20
      • As climate change worsens hurricane season in Louisiana, doulas are ensuring parents can safely feed their babies

        Jessica Kutz · May 5
    • From the Collection

      Next-Gen GOP

      Illustration of a woman riding an elephant
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • A banner year for Republican women

        Amanda Becker · November 11
      • Republican women could double representation in the U.S. House

        Amanda Becker · November 4
    • From the Collection

      On The Rise

      Illustration of three women marching
      • Can Cheri Beasley build a winning coalition in North Carolina?

        Candice Norwood · October 11
      • Los Angeles has never elected a woman mayor. Karen Bass hopes to change that.

        Nadra Nittle · September 8
      • Judge J. Michelle Childs is confirmed to D.C. appeals court

        Candice Norwood · July 20
    • From the Collection

      Pandemic Within a Pandemic

      Illustration of four people marching for Black Lives Matter with coronavirus as the backdrop
      • Some LGBTQ+ people worry that the COVID-19 vaccine will affect HIV medication. It won’t.

        Orion Rummler · November 23
      • Why are more men dying from COVID? It’s a complicated story of nature vs. nurture, researchers say

        Mariel Padilla · September 22
      • Few incarcerated women were released during COVID. The ones who remain have struggled.

        Candice Norwood · August 17
    • From the Collection

      Portraits of a Pandemic

      Illustration of a woman wearing a mask and holding up the coronavirus
      • For family caregivers, COVID is a mental health crisis in the making

        Shefali Luthra · October 8
      • A new database tracks COVID-19’s effects on sex and gender

        Shefali Luthra · September 15
      • Pregnant in a pandemic: The 'perfect storm for a crisis'

        Shefali Luthra · August 25
    • From the Collection

      The 19th Explains

      People walking from many articles to one article where they can get the context they need on an issue.
      • The 19th Explains: What we know about Brittney Griner’s case and what it took to get her home

        Candice Norwood, Katherine Gilyard · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why the Respect for Marriage Act doesn’t codify same-sex marriage rights

        Kate Sosin · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why baby formula is still hard to find months after the shortage

        Mariel Padilla · December 1
    • From the Collection

      The Electability Myth

      Illustration of three women speaking at podiums
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • Stepping in after tragedy: How political wives became widow lawmakers

        Mariel Padilla · May 24
      • Do term limits help women candidates? New York could be a new testing ground

        Barbara Rodriguez · January 11
    • From the Collection

      The Impact of Aging

      A number of older people walking down a path of information.
      • From ballroom dancing to bloodshed, the older AAPI community grapples with gun control

        Nadra Nittle, Mariel Padilla · January 27
      • 'I'm planning on working until the day I die': Older women voters are worried about the future

        Mariel Padilla · June 3
      • Climate change is forcing care workers to act as first responders

        Jessica Kutz · May 31
    • From the Collection

      Voting Rights

      A series of hands reaching for ballots.
      • Election workers believe in our system — and want everyone else to, too

        Barbara Rodriguez, Jennifer Gerson · November 8
      • Voter ID laws stand between transgender people, women and the ballot box

        Barbara Rodriguez · October 14
      • Emily’s List expands focus on diverse candidates and voting rights ahead of midterm elections

        Errin Haines · August 30

    View all collections

  • Explore by Topic

    • 19th Polling
    • Abortion
    • Business & Economy
    • Caregiving
    • Coronavirus
    • Education
    • Election 2020
    • Election 2022
    • Environment & Climate
    • Health
    • Immigration
    • Inside The 19th
    • Justice
    • LGBTQ+
    • Politics
    • Press Release
    • Race
    • Sports
    • Technology

    View All Topics

Home
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th News(letter)

News from reporters who represent you and your communities.

Please check your email to confirm your subscription!

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Become a member

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

Alysia Montano holds a bottle of Gatorade to her pregnant belly.
A pregnant Alysia Montano is pictured after running in a 2014 competition. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

Sports

Athletes don’t have pregnancy protections. Here’s why that could finally change.

A push for contract language in sponsorship contracts aims to expand athletes’ benefits during pregnancy, postpartum recovery and parental leave.

Barbara Rodriguez

State Politics and Voting Reporter

Barbara Rodriguez portrait

Published

2021-11-17 05:00
5:00
November 17, 2021
am

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

*Correction appended.

In 2016, Alysia Montaño was thinking about having her second child. She was also thinking about competing in the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Montaño — by then already an Olympic athlete and world champion in track and field — had competed while 34 weeks pregnant with her first child in 2014. As long as she felt healthy and strong, Montaño believed she could do anything. Because she, like other athletes, relies heavily on sponsors for financial support, she approached one of her sponsors about a training plan that would allow her to have a baby, then compete in the Tokyo Olympics, while the brand (which she declined to name) backed her.

“It was crickets,” Montaño recalled. “I could feel a ball in my throat. I just wanted to cry.”

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

Montaño said representatives for the company did not renew her contract.

Now, the 35-year-old Montaño is part of an effort to push for more widespread changes in how the sports industry treats athletes’ rights around parenthood. Her goal, she said, is to help guarantee other athletes will not be penalized for having both a career and a family.

“We need to really make sure that these are not battles that women or mothers are fighting alone,” Montaño said. “These are best rectified if we can put them in writing — in policy where it’s known that, ‘Hey, we don’t have to fight for this. These are our rights.’”

Stories by experienced reporters you can trust and relate to.

Delivered directly to your inbox every weekday.

Please check your email to confirm your subscription!

Submitting…

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

&Mother, the nonprofit co-founded by Montaño in 2020, and Oiselle, a women’s apparel company, this week are publicly sharing model contract language ensuring that athletes have benefits during pregnancy, postpartum recovery and parental leave. The language, which they helped draft, can be used by any athlete, brand or sports agent during future contract negotiations.

Molly Dickens, co-founder and executive director of &Mother, said the nonprofit and Oiselle want other brands to sign onto the project. More brands have jumped into the space of supporting athlete parents in recent years, including Altra, Athleta, Burton, Cadenshae, HOKA One One and Salomon. 

“This is us putting something into the world because it’s a resource to build on, but we’re not the only ones who are thinking and benefiting from doing this work,” Dickens said.

In elite sports, most governing bodies are not responsible for an athlete’s salary. Though there is prize money from competition, many athletes rely on brand sponsorships to help pay the bills, which can lead to them being treated like independent contractors. 

Sponsorships are based on individualized contracts that traditionally have not acknowledged athletes who become parents, said Cynthia Calvert, an attorney who has represented plaintiffs in pregnancy discrimination cases and was a part of the team that helped write the model language.

“Too often, motherhood and pregnancy are viewed as inconveniences or as aberrations,” she said. “We have this concept in our minds of the ‘ideal worker’ who I think probably never actually existed. Someone who was based on the model of a White middle-class male in the 1950s or ’60s, who had someone at home taking care of all the family responsibilities and taking care of the kids.”

Montaño poses with her daughter Liliana.
Montaño poses with her daughter Liliana after winning the women’s 800 meter run final during day four of the 2015 USA outdoor track & field championships at Hayward Field in 2015. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

That dynamic can seem more pronounced in the world of sports, where athletes rely on their bodies to compete. As a result, women, in particular, have had to challenge outdated perceptions around their careers and family while beholden to sponsors that have broad power to renew or terminate lucrative contracts. Sally Bergesen, founder and CEO of Oiselle, said that precarity can surprise outside spectators, who might hold visions of professional athletes having six-figure salaries — which is true for only a small percentage.

“Because the Olympics are so flashy, I think people assume that pro athletes are living the lifestyle and are super well-supported and -paid, and the fact of the matter is it’s just not true,” she said.

Montaño’s experience in 2016 informed her thinking in 2019 when she helped pen an op-ed in The New York Times calling out brands that cut pay and benefits to pregnant athletes. Other athletes, including Olympian Allyson Felix, also spoke out about their experience. The public outcry led several companies, including Nike, to announce changes to pregnancy accommodations for athletes.

Although some brands have publicly changed their approach to pregnant athletes or non-birth parents, Montaño thinks it’s still too incremental. She said that, with the exception of a few athletes, it is still too common for a contract to not be renewed when someone becomes pregnant or expresses intentions to start a family.

“That’s not what we want the norm to be. This is protected,” she said. “Actually, this person doesn’t even need to talk to you or tell you about this. … They’re protected.”

There is no comprehensive oversight of who’s doing what. Calvert said common language in athletic sponsorship contracts implies an athlete won’t be fired or have their compensation reduced for any reason. But it will often be included alongside stipulations tying an athlete’s pay to competitive performance without acknowledging a pregnancy or realistic postpartum needs.

“If your timeline is that you have to be winning or doing really well by nine months postpartum, it seems like a generous leave time,” Dickens said. “But if you do the math on it, you have to be training at peak by two, three months postpartum. That timeline doesn’t work for everybody.”

Calvert said the language she helped write — based on interviews with athletes, brands and other stakeholders — addresses such contradictions by clearly prohibiting an athlete’s termination or pay cut because of pregnancy, postpartum recovery or parental leave. It suggests that brands allow waivers regarding competition performance expectations for up to 12 months after someone gives birth — and more if needed — as well as flexibility regarding in-person appearances.

  • More from The 19th
    People strand by the water looking at the Olympic Rings in Tokyo.
  • Olympic officials nudge sports federations toward greater inclusion for transgender and nonbinary athletes
  • The word missing from the vast majority of anti-trans legislation? Transgender

“We had some things that were just obvious and absolutely non-negotiable: There won’t be any discrimination because of pregnancy. And that just sounds so obvious. But discrimination … it just creeps into all the little cracks,” she said.

Dickens said there can be a subtle discrimination for athletes who start making plans around pregnancy or parenthood.

“If you were to ask to insert any kind of pregnancy or postpartum clause, you’ll get the side eye that you’re expecting to start a family,” she said. “That in and of itself might kind of put a target on you.”

The suggested best practices that &Mother and Oiselle recommend include telling brands to consider tasking athletes during and after a pregnancy with promotional work separate from competition. Calvert noted an example of an athlete who recently used a sponsor’s clothing on her children during an outdoor family activity. But it also includes a guarantee that athletes are not expected to do anything in the weeks before delivery and 12 weeks afterward. (The parental leave clause also contains language that applies to any gender or family structure.)

Calvert thinks some sponsors lack creativity about the longevity of an athlete’s career.

“That’s where I’m hoping these contract provisions will come in and fill in the gaps,” she said. “Because now all of a sudden, you don’t have to have that creativity. We’re spoon feeding it to you.”

Part of it is a culture infused with secrecy around contract negotiations. When Kimmy Fasani became a professional snowboarder, she was a teenager with no plans to become a parent. Even as she entered her 30s, she didn’t fully realize her power to challenge pregnancy clauses in her sponsorship contracts that used outdated language.

“Pregnancy was always just considered an injury,” she said. “And in my contracts, I was like, ‘OK, well I’m not having a family.’ So I didn’t really think twice about what that verbiage meant.” 

In 2017, Fasani decided to become pregnant with her husband, professional skier Chris Benchetler. Even though she had just been recognized as one of the best snowboarders in the sport, she still worried about when to share the news with her sponsors. Fasani said fortunately, they were supportive, but she recognized that was a subjective experience. 

“I didn’t feel like there was a need for me to go from my best season ever to retirement just because I wanted to have a child,” the now 37-year-old told The 19th.

Kimmy Fasani goes airborne on a snowboard.
Kimmy Fasani goes airborne as she finished sixth in the women’s snowboard slopestyle at Winter X Games 13 in 2009. (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

Calvert said she hopes the suggested contractual language spurs brands to go further — particularly around child care. That means child care stipends or accommodations for on-site services during competition.

“For athletes, they need to spend hours per day training, and they need to travel and they need to be able to concentrate for a long period of time at a competition,” she said. “That raises the issue of child care because athletes for the most part are not rolling in money and child care is very expensive. For athletes who don’t have partners, child care can be really hard to set and can fall through. It’s just an incredible source of stress.”

The evolving public discussion in America over pregnancy protections for athletes comes as international athletes still face overt discrimination. This year, an Italian volleyball club sued one of its players, Lara Lugli, for allegedly breaking her contract because she became pregnant. The club fired Lugli, turning litigious when she sought backpay. Lugli, who is challenging the lawsuit, later had a miscarriage.

When American beach volleyball player Lauren Fendrick competed abroad in early 2020 to try to qualify for the upcoming Olympics, she was just eight months after giving birth to her daughter. She said the international rules at the time gave her fewer competition points for being postpartum.

“For me, making the Olympics and being a mom were two different paths,” she said.

The pandemic sidelined Fendrick’s plans to try to qualify for the Olympics. She gave birth to a second child earlier this year. Now nearly 40, she said she feels strong and is considering a return to competition. Fair policies around pregnancy have to be more front and center so the path is easier for those who come after her, she said.

“This is a movement that I believe in,” she said. “This is language that I believe should be standard.”

In America, Congress is debating whether to provide paid family leave benefits to all workers, a policy debate that appears uncertain. Montaño, who recently gave birth to a third child, said talking about the realities of professional athletes is a way to shine a light on what’s missing in other areas of the workforce.

“We can’t allow families to thrive if we drop them when they actually need the support,” she said. “How do we expect for them to come back intact? They’re not going to be able to. Essentially, you’re just pushing them out of their careers.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article called &Mother an athletic brand. It is a nonprofit.

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

Help sustain what we started

Your monthly investment is critical to our sustainability as a nonprofit newsroom.

Donate Today

Become a member

From the Collection

Changing Child Care

Illustration of a woman feeding a baby a bottle
  • 1 in 4 parents report being fired for work interruptions due to child care breakdowns

    Chabeli Carrazana · February 2
  • Washington, D.C., offers financial relief to local child care workers

    Orion Rummler · September 20
  • As climate change worsens hurricane season in Louisiana, doulas are ensuring parents can safely feed their babies

    Jessica Kutz · May 5

Up Next

People strand by the water looking at the Olympic Rings in Tokyo.

Sports

Olympic officials nudge sports federations toward greater inclusion for transgender and nonbinary athletes

The International Olympic Committee issued nonbinding guidelines, including one on testosterone testing, that would allow more athletes to participate.

Read the Story

The 19th
The 19th is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Our stories are free to republish in accordance with these guidelines.

  • Donate
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Search
  • Jobs
  • Fellowships
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Community Guidelines
  • Membership
  • Membership FAQ
  • Major Gifts
  • Sponsorship
  • Privacy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram