Wimbledon to offer equal prize to men and women

[jai_in_canada]

... “equal does not mean the same.  Men and women will never be like this: 4 = 4, but they can be equal like this: 2 + 2 = 1 + 3.”

Can 1+1 = 0+2? 

What does that mean if there was a WTA vs ATP doubles match?  Two women players versus one non-existent player and one "weight-challenged" male player?

Just kidding, Dr. B.  I agree with the gist of your argument, but then 1+3 is indeed the same as and equal to 2+2.  Isn't it?  Or is there some modern math involved?

If two groups of players - male and female - are using the same court, balls, rackets, rules (except for number of sets and, thank God, different clothes!), and the male players are putting on a better quality product with higher revenue for the tournament, then should the correct business decision not be have some sort of formula for prize money tied to revenue / profit.  Samarth is right, these decisions are not made on moral, ethical or even financial criteria.  It is most often driven by political considerations. 

[BSharma]

... “equal does not mean the same.  Men and women will never be like this: 4 = 4, but they can be equal like this: 2 + 2 = 1 + 3.”

If two groups of players - male and female - are using the same court, balls, rackets, rules (except for number of sets and, thank God, different clothes!), and the male players are putting on a better quality product with higher revenue for the tournament, then should the correct business decision not be have some sort of formula for prize money tied to revenue / profit.  Samarth is right, these decisions are not made on moral, ethical or even financial criteria.  It is most often driven by political considerations. 

Better quality product has never garnered equal amount of money in any field – sports, education, medicine, etc.  Leander and Mahesh play top class doubles, but cannot earn equal to the Indian cricket players.  Poor performing club football teams in Kolkata fill up the stadiums, yet the same players cannot attract significant crowds in other cities.  An Internal Medicine physician or a pediatrician delivers equal quality product as a surgeon, but gets paid significantly less.  An ophthalmologist earns about $1200 for a five-minute cataract surgery, yet an Internal Medicine physician can take care of an elderly patient with a serious eye infection and gets paid less than $500 for five days of hospital care or a gastroenterologist can do a 30-minute long endoscopy – more complicated than cataract surgery – and gets paid about $300.

People are primarily paid based on demand and supply and political considerations occur infrequently, as may have been the case at Wimbledon.  More people watch men sports than women sports because of superior quality of play, but viewer-ship is predominantly male because women often have societal duties that keep them away from the stadium or the way they are brought up in society makes them less likely to get interested in sports.  There are not too many female sports role models for them to take sports as a career, and when they do, many are expected to do the household duties, bear children, etc.  Do we believe that Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Jimmy Connors, McEnroe, Leander, etc would continue to play for as long as they have done if their societal roles were reversed with a woman?  Many women players talk about retiring from sports once they reach 26 or 28 years of age to start a family.

More women will go to watch women sports if gender roles make it easier to do so.  Until then, we will have fewer sponsors, less ticket sales and less money for women sports.  Society has under-valued the role of a mother or housewife, and the professional women players are paying the price for it.

[jayakris]

OK, OK, if I agree with you, will you shut up, doc? 

Just kidding .. Keep it coming.  You are making some very good arguments that some things must just be done, and not evaluated for cost-benefits with normal criteria.

Jay

[BSharma]

OK, OK, if I agree with you, will you shut up, doc? 

Just kidding .. Keep it coming.  You are making some very good arguments that some things must just be done, and not evaluated for cost-benefits with normal criteria.

Jay

Man, does Jay have a way to get even with a person who stayed up until 4 a.m. to give company to his wife while she was trying to solve (from home) some IT related problems.

BTW, I expected her to cook breakfast and lunch for the family this morning proving once again that all the BS I throw at Sports-India is not backed by my deeds.  After all, I am a Male Chauvinistic Pig. 

[jai_in_canada]

Dr. B, you may be an MCP, but in your case it only means Most Copious Poster! 

Doc - I love your reasoned, balanced and civilzed theses, but in this case I agree only partially.

I agree that women do not watch sports in the same numbers as men.  However, I disagree with your assessment of why that is i.e. domestic duties / societal conditioning prevent them from doing so.  I am no psychologist, but I am convinced that as a group, women are not drawn to watching sports like men are because their brains are wired differently due to evolution.  I believe it is nature not nurture.  The rules based, judgement-by-score, tribal affiliation to teams/players etc. is not aluring to women in general.  There are exceptions, of course, like my Mom, who at 75 will quite seriously scold the TV set everytime Tendulkar gets out, or if VVS Laxman is dropped from the team, or when Roddick loses yet again to Federer.  The other women in my life (sister, wife etc) are so disinterested in sports it breaks my heart! 

To your point, it comes down to demand and supply - but again that is only part of the equation.  There is a huge demand for Olympics, and the IOC has a huge coffer.  However, that money hardly makes it down to the athletes who put on the show. 

Thus, politics often trump economics or ethics when it comes to compensation for female athletes (and athletes in general).

P.S.  Does any one know why male fashion models are paid so much less than female fashion models?

[BSharma]

For fear of getting reprimanded by Jay again,  I will end this discussion.  Whether SI members agree with my reasoning or not, I take comfort in Jay’s closing remarks, “. . . You are making some very good arguments that some things must just be done, and not evaluated for cost-benefits with normal criteria.” 

Canadian Jai wrote:

P.S.  Does any one know why male fashion models are paid so much less than female fashion models?

I will let this one slide before Mrs. BBS scolds me and takes away my Internet privileges.   

[genius]

Doc, i had hoped to get a few outraged responses! you spoilt it with serious discussion!

  However, if society wants girls to become more active in sports – a societal good, more women to become spectators at sporting events and more ads to be targeted towards women then it will have to support women sports and not let them flounder on their own.  A good place to start is to let men and women get equal prize money at tournaments where both play simultaneously. 

That's a dubious argument. if they are not interested in sports, they are just not interested.

After all even with those societal roles, they have time for say tv serials or films isn't it?

[PKBasu]

Heck, I am reeling from the realisation that 80% of forum-members seem to be opposed to this sensible decision by Wimbledon! Three reasons why Wimbledon is absolutely right:

1. Women's tennis is the biggest sport for women in the world -- commercially speaking -- and it stands to reason that they should be paid at least as much as the men in the tournaments that they play together.
2. The women players are aesthetically more pleasing to the eye (particularly to the men who make up more of the audience  ) than the men anyday. From Chris Evert (not Lloyd, note!) to Tracy Austin and Kathy Rinaldi, Steffi Graf and Gabriela Sabatini, to Sania Mirza, Maria Sharapova and Martina Hingis, the women have just been prettier and more exciting in their tennis than the grunting and ever-uglier men (Federer being a clear exception from the tennis stand-point; but think of Lendl, Nadal, Roddick -- all of whom have detracted from the beauty of the game over time).
3. I haven't done a proper scientific/quantitative analysis of this, but I think women have helped keep tennis afloat as an international sport in the past 5-10 years. The men's game was becoming boring and predictable, while the women's game was full of interesting characters (the Williams sisters, Sharapova, Kournikova, Mirza, Bremond, Seles, Graf, Sabatini, Navratilova, etc.) who widened the audience for tennis as a whole. There is a good basis for thinking that tennis as a sport would be much the poorer had the women's game not provided the diversity (and diversification) that reduces risk. 

[x_y_Z_a]

I would agree with Bhushanji's argument provided women players / WTA give the same argument as him rather than saying they just deserve it 

[10nis_ace]

To PKB's point of women's game keeping tennis afloat - ATP generates far larger revenues than WTA. Same goes with the TV ratings. I think it's the other way round. Men's game has kept tennis alive then women.

[jayakris]

Yes, I don't think PKB was right at all in that.  The newspapers and media keep talking about it, to sell the story to non-tennis people (who don't pay much, nor do they watch much tennis on TV except for some GS final or something).   As for the ones who pay for the tickets, season passes, and for the companies that sponsor the events, men's tennis has been way more attractive than women's.   That is part of the reason why there is significantly more events and prize money on the men's tour than women's. 

There are NO men's events under 400K prize money, but there are many many $175K and $200K women's events.

I just put som date into spreadsheets and checked the total prize money in the two tours.  Taking out the 4 grand slams, Miami and Indian Wells where the men and women bring spectators together, we have 56 women's events and 61 men's events.

Prize money at the 61 men's events = $50.9 Million
Prize money at the 56 women's events = $26.7 Million

A case could be made that women only bring in 55% of what the men bring in.

I checked the one special event that could be a good comparison also -- The Canadian Open that switches back and forth between Toronto and Montreal in alternate years, either the men's or the women's event being at each city every year.   Organized by the same TennisCanada people, who use their usual sponsors.

Men's prize money at the Canadian Open = $2.45M
Women's prize money at the Canadian Open = $1.34M

See that it is about 55% worth, using that data point too.

The women's tour now makes an argument that ATP forces top players to go to masters events while WTA doesn't.   They conveniently forget that the prize money situation was exactly the same when ATP did not have mandatory masters'e events in the "super-9" time a few years back.

Basically the numbers do not back up the argument that the women's tour brings inmore money etc.  Neither is it correct that women's event kept tennis afloat etc.   That is stuff the media writes with no evidence, for NON_TENNIS people who are not serious, who don't pay, are not part of sponsorship equations, and are not interested in anything more than watching the "beauty" on display on the women's tour - or in hearing the TV news and in reading some newspaper reports if accompanied by a Sharapova, Serena or sania picture (hence the media feeds them that stuff).  So, don't buy that hype in the press.

I could accept other arguments in favor of equal prize money, but economics is not one! .. Sorry, women are only worth 55% for the tennis fans

Jay

[jayakris]

The top-10 players are slightly more worth, relatively, based on ONE comparison point.

The Year end Men's Masters in China offers $4.5M prize money
The Year end Women's Champinship in Madrid offers $3.0M prize money.

OK, top women are worth 66% of the top men, for tennis fans and sponsors.

Jay

[jai_in_canada]

Great analysis, Jay.  That's what I'm talking about.  I did know that the Canadian Open paid out differently to men and women.  I know that the men's tournament in Toronto typically draws 150,000 at the gate during the week of the tournament.  In the years the women come to Toronto, that number is around 80,000.  Besides, viewership on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is lower for the women (I don't have the numbers, but I read that in the sports section of one of the newspapers).

Also, the argument that women's tennis is the biggest women's sport therefore women should make the same as men is not logical.  If women's tennis is the biggest women's sport, let the women tennis players make more than other women athletes.  Why would that justify the same pay as men?  Secondly, saying that the WTA kept the ATP afloat is like saying the WNBA has kept the NBA going.

[jayakris]

I would be surprised if Toroto showed that much of a drop (from 150K to 80K) between the men's and women's events.  Generally my feeling was that WTA events do get enough people to come and watch - because the top women players are as much (or probably more) known than the top men's players.  Whether they would come if the ticket money were the same etc, I don't know.  I am also a bit puzzled by the significant disparity in prize money (which must come from sponsorship disparity as well) .. Perhaps the fat cat men's club company sponsors look down on the women's events? ...

Tough to do objective comparison, really.

Jay

[jai_in_canada]

Jay, I was wrong about the numbers.  In 2005 the women's event drew 165,000 plus for the week, thereby setting a world record for attendance to a women's one-week tennis tournament.  The men's tournament in drew about 172,000 plus. I tried to find out the ticket prices, but I am having a hard time comparing the two.  I know there is a difference in ticket prices, but not a large amount.  Thus, in terms of gate revenue, looks like Tennis Canada rakes in about the same revenue whether it is a men's or women's event.  If that is the case, I say the prize money should indeed be the same for men and women.  Unless there is a huge difference in TV and on-court advertising revenue.