Should prize money be equal in Grand Slam Tennis?

[PeteWasLucky]

Equal prize money for women in the Grand Slams is a topic that
still divides even though it has been 7 years since Wimbledon
became the last slam to adopt equal prize money.

High profile players like Roger Federer will skip and dodge
questions on the topic, others like Gilles Simon have argued that
it shouldn?t be equal.

Tennis is one of the few sports that women receive prize money
commensurate with males and in terms of endorsements; Maria
Sharapova can out-earn nearly all men. Compare this with surfing,
where women have increased their prize money immensely but still
only compete for half the men?s prize money.

A common argument is that the men play for longer (five sets
compared to three sets). However, women have continually stated
that they would be happy to play the five sets if required. With
scheduling there would be no way for the women to play five sets,
especially over the early rounds, as the tournaments would never
finish in the allotted two weeks.

On the other hand, women claim that the sport should be a
meritocracy and that they have to work just as hard as the men to
get to the top. This has been an argument pushed by Venus
Williams over the last decade or so, and she was instrumental in
getting Wimbledon to finally make equal prize pools.

In fact, there is an excellent documentary by ESPN about Venus and
her predecessor Billie Jean King and their fight for equal prize
money at Wimbledon called ?Venus Vs.?

Coincidentally, prize money since equality was reached for both
men and women has nearly tripled, from the winners? purses of
£650,000 and £600,000 in 2006.

In 1968, the first year of pro tennis at Wimbledon, the men?s
winner received £2000 and the women?s £700.

Professional tennis is a business, much like most other major
sports these days. Gilles Simon?s belief that the women?s game is
inferior is only a personal opinion, and also the effort required
to get to the top shouldn?t matter.

I agree with Andy Roddick who said, ?based on any other business
in the world, the more you sell, the more you make?.

Prize money should be commensurate with ability to pull in
revenue. The question in tennis is, who pulls in the
revenue?

This can be hard to ascertain but there are some indicators which
can help.

Using the US Open as an example, the tournament generates $195
million of revenue. $85 million of this comes from ticket sales
and the remainder from sponsorship and TV rights.

TV rights revenue can be assigned partially by looking at TV
ratings. Ratings for US Open finals (as an example) can be highly
variable, and sometime the women?s final can get more viewers
than the men?s.

In this year?s French open, more viewers in the US watched the
women?s (2 million) than the men?s (1.9 million). More people
were interested in watching Serena vs Sharapova than Nadal vs
Ferrer.

The US Open men?s final also received less viewers than the
women?s, but is now played on a Monday ? up against the Monday
night NFL juggernaut.

Ticket sales are the same price for both sexes, and getting
tickets to all matches are in high demand, so it is hard to
differentiate between the sexes here.

Similarly, determining the amount each gender attracts in
sponsorship can be hard to ascertain in Slams where everything is
pooled.

Outside of the Slams, the tours come together to play in a handful
of major and minor tournaments every year.

There are varying amounts of prize money for men and women, where
the relative importance of the tournament bears a big impact on
the prize pool. In Sydney and Beijing the women actually have
bigger prize money, mainly due to the fact that there are other
large events running concurrently on the men?s tour.

Perhaps a better analysis can be done by looking at other
tournaments on the ATP and WTA tours where women and men do not
play together.

However, if you only look at tournaments where men and women play
separately, we have remarkably different prize money.

The women?s tour has 31 independent tournaments for a total pool
of $24.6 million and an average $794,000. Whereas the men have 51
individual tournaments with a total pool $65 million for an
average of $1.29 million.

Using this very rough analysis, it could be argued that women?s
tennis is indeed a high profile and valuable tour but when left
to its own devices, can generate only 75 percent of the prize
money that men can attract.

It is open to conjecture if this relationship also exists in the
Slams, where some statistics show the women attract just as much
interest. Maybe it?s a case of the top women attracting as much
interest as the men but with lower ranked players and
tournaments, there is more revenue and interest in men?s
tennis.


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[kaennorsing]

Op zaterdag 26 maart 2016 17:22:25 UTC+1 schreef PeteWasLucky:

The reason women don't play b05 matches is not because they're unfit or unwilling. It's because nobody would care to watch... Price money is a reflection of the value of entertainment based on the demand for that particular entertainment. As it is there is no demand for females playing b05 matches, so price money should simply reflect that... It shouldn't be political.

[PeteWasLucky]

All tournaments men play are bo3 except slams.

[OW]

>
> It is open to conjecture if this relationship also exists in the
> Slams, where some statistics show the women attract just as much
> interest. Maybe it?s a case of the top women attracting as much
> interest as the men but with lower ranked players and
> tournaments, there is more revenue and interest in men?s
> tennis.
>

When Serena is gone you'll see a big push to eliminate equal pay.