Wimbledon, the only Grand Slam tennis tournament to have unequal prizes for the men’s and women’s winners, is getting grief from all quarters for not following the lead of the Australian, French, and U.S. Open tournaments by paying equal prize money to men and women.
Critics of Wimbledon are portraying this as an issue of sex discrimination, which is pure nonsense. Unless of course, it’s discrimination when someone is paid slightly less for doing a lot less work. Let’s cut to the chase.
All through the tournament the men play the best 3 out of 5 sets to win, while the women only play the best 2 out of 3 sets. The fact is that the women will make about 5 percent less for actually playing a lot less than the men throughout the entire tournament, especially in the finals.
The men have to play at least 3 sets no matter what, while 3 sets is the most that the women will have to play.
Since 1980, the women’s final winner has won in two sets 14 times and had to go three sets to win 12 times. The average length of a Wimbledon women’s final match is 92 minutes with the shortest match lasting only 54 minutes and the longest match lasting 165 minutes. Only 8 times since 1980 has the women’s final lasted more than 100 minutes.
During this same stretch on the grass courts at the All-England Club the men’s winner won in 3 sets 13 times, 4 sets 7 times, and 5 sets 6 times. The average length of a Wimbledon’s men’s final match is 150 minutes with the shortest match lasting 80 minutes and the longest match lasting 256 minutes.
And these figures don’t even touch on how many more hours the men play over the course of the tournament than the women, nor does it take into account how many more hours of conditioning that the men need to log in order to be fit enough to play 5 set matches.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Sherri
For the most part, I agree with you -- although I would also argue that any administrative assistant worth his or her salt works a lot harder than the CEO ... and gets paid a lot less. But that's an argument for another day. :-)
The only argument against the women getting paid less might be this (and I don't have empirical data): if the women draw more eyeballs to the TV sets and thus more money to the coffers of Wimbledon, then they deserve equal money.
In this case, it's not an hourly wage we're talking about ... it's how much money you bring to the table. After all, cricket players play much longer games than baseball players ... but no one is arguing they should be paid more than that utility infielder on the Milwaukee Brewers.
Just a thought.
2 - sal m
the argument from the wimbledon critics has been framed in terms of equality, not popularity. therefore, i responded to this argument.
if you equalize for the time spent on the court the women are paid much more than the men. they are already getting MORE than equal money.
if women want true equality - and if their brand of tennis is so popular - they should demand to play 5 set matches and demand they be paid the additional $50,000 or so for their efforts.
3 - Matthew T. Sussman
Most everything women do vs. men are smaller in size in sports -- hitting from the "ladies tees" and playing with a smaller basketball.
But softball, that's a larger ball. So should they get paid more? Then again, the mound is closer to the plate, so maybe that offsets the size.
Damn, this would make one hilarious irreverently gender-slamming post. And Sal, you beat me to it. I shake my fist at you.
4 - sal m
wait a minute there mr. sports editor...
women golfers may play from different distances, but they still play tournaments that are made up of 4 rounds of 18 holes each.
and softball is too obscure of a sport, has different rules than baseball and doesn't compete with major league baseball in any way.
the coexistance of women's and men's tennis in these major tournaments is unlike any other sport. imagine if the men's and women's golf's us open were played at the same course at the same time or if the nba/wnba finals or men's and women's college final four played at the same time.
the issue in tennis is unique because the major tournaments feature both men and women at the same time. the rules and courts are the same, but the women play less and make more money.
5 - Matthew T. Sussman
Ah, I gotcha -- so it's amount played, not distance played.
So in the WNBA they play 40 minute games, as opposed to 48-minute games in the MNBA. A softball game is 7 innings vs. a 9-inning MLB epic struggle.
6 - sal m
in a game like golf the dimensions and elements of the "field of play" constantly changes. the pin placement changes during a tournament and the length of holes change from week to week. this year's us open course is different from last year's tourney and will be different next year - length's, pin placements, roughs, greens and everything will change. the constant is 4 rounds of 18 holes.
and do you really think that the salary structure should be the same in the wnba as in the nba? and is the only difference between baseball and softball the differnce in innings played?
7 - Q Bit
Good points Sal.
Given the purse difference is a mere $53K, I doubt if your arguments could justify that. I can only guess, a methodical approach connecting playing time and purse value would increase the disparity by a factor of 3 or 4.
It only shows the WImbledon authority have no reasonable justification for their decision except their stubborn insistence that only raises more questions. In my opinion this is a clear case of gender discrimination for the heck of it - not that they are going to come forward and admit.
Equality is fine - but should be appropriately enforced where applicable and not blindly. I guess neither side gets that.
8 - sal m
Q Bit:
You miss my point.
Wimbledon has no reason to back away from what they've done. They're right.
The women play less but make more than men. There's really not too much more to it than that. And to make this an issue of sex descrimintion trivializes all real issues of such.
Equal pay for equal time - or something close to it - used to be the motto. I guess that's changed.
9 - Q Bit
Let me explain. If the Wimbledon authority wants to justify the disparity (it is reasonable to ask why there is one) then going by your arguments, it should be more than just a symbolic $53K.
May be the authorities don't have one and that is ridiculous.
When Pratyush posted his article, my initial reaction was - sounds good.
Your post now gave me something to think about.
10 - sal m
Qbit, here's the reasoning from the Wimbledon folks.
"Phillips said because top men rarely play in Grand Slam doubles events, they earn less overall than women. In addition, the men play best-of-five set matches while the women play best of three.
"It just doesn't seem right to us that the lady players could play in three events and could take away significantly more than the men's champion who battles away through these best-of-five matches," Phillips said. "We don't see it as an equal rights issue."
11 - Kris Kieslowski
The argument about time spent on court seems flawed to me. First of all, if you're going to use it to begin with, you'd better be consistent about it. So, for example, if a Wimbledon men's champ wins in two hours, why shouldn't he be paid half what a men's champ gets for winning in four hours?
But here's my biggest problem with the argument. Yes, women spend about 40% less time on court. But the time, money, and dedication it takes over many years to reach the level to win Wimbledon is probably every bit as great for women as it is for men. The number of hours spent playing, taken out of this context, is a pretty poor measure of the work that women's players actually do.
12 - sal m
it's not just a simple matter of time spent on the court, although how can you justify paying someone equally for ultimately doing less work?
men have to play the best three out of five, which right off the bat means that the shortest match they play is as long as the longest match women play.
the time spent playing is not taken out of context as it takes a lot more time to condition to prepare to play five set matches than it does to play three set matches.
just like boxers who need to train for 12 round fights need to spend more time training than boxers who have 8 round fights.
13 - Kris Kieslowski
The point is that women *don't* do less work when one factors in the thousands of hours of preparation that it takes a player of either gender to reach championship level.
As for men supposedly having to train harder because they play up to five sets, I'd have to see hard evidence for this before believing it. The difference has to do with inherent physical makeup, not greater preparation time. Do the fastest female sprinters train only 90% as much as their male counterparts, because they run only 90% as fast?
14 - sal m
since you are unaware of the level of training necessary to compete for different competitions it's easy to see why you don't understand the issue.
your assumption that inherent physical makeup lessens the need for specific training reveals your lack of knowledge with regards to the subject.
people who train for 5 set matches do in fact train more than people who train for 3 set matches. just because you don't think so - or are unaware of this fact - doesn't change this reality.
furthermore, male and female athletes who are 100m sprinters for the most part train almost in the exact same way because their races are the same length. the fact that the men are slightly faster doesn't change the fact that the distances both sexes run are the same, therefore the mechanisms trained for 100m races are basically the same.
15 - Kris Kieslowski
OK, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, for now. You're right that my believing something doesn't make it true, but the same applies equally to you. Fair enough? :-) So how about you point us to some reliable sources (books, articles, websites, etc.) that document the allegedly greater training time for male tennis players. And while you're at it, why don't you also back up your "knowledge" by giving an approximate percentage of how much more time male tennis players spend training than their female counterparts.
16 - sal m
well that's a bit too much info for this setting, but here's what i can tell you and you can make up your own mind.
in my 20 years of being a professional strength and conditioning coach i have worked with tennis players from ages of 10 and up. some have gone to great things, some very good and some not so good.
i've trained a state champ, big 10 champ who is also the all time winningest women's big 10 singles player and who was inducted into her school's hall of fame, who played some pro and is involved in pro tennis today.
i've also worked with and been around boy/men players as well.
as the level of tennis goes up,the level of training increases. an element of this increased level of play is the increased length of matches.
my state champ had to increase the amount of training that she did for college because college matches went longer, and we made the same adjustments when we were preparing her for the pro events.
in working with her, and with other conditioning pros who worked more with boy/men players i know how these guys train, and the difference between what males and females do.
17 - Kris Kieslowski
Thanks for the explanation. You've gone some way towards persuading me. Just out of curiosity, could you tell me if you think women can play five sets as readily as men, provided they receive the necessary training, and if so, why their matches don't therefore get extended? This would help to remove a lot of the controversy concerning equal pay, it seems.
18 - sal m
i certainly think that women can and should play 5 sets, at least in the biggest tournaments. maybe they could phase it in by having them play the final two rounds best of five.
as long as women adjusted their training, there's no reason to think that they couldn't maintain their level of play throughout these longer matches.
my position with regards to pay has nothing to do with the level of ability, so i agree with you. as a matter of fact i think you can make the case that women's tennis is more popular then the men's and by going to 5 sets the women would wind up making more.
i think the best of 3 set format is a remnant of the old days when the thinking was that women weren't able to go a best of 5.
i'd like an explanation from the tennis folks as to why the women are still playing best of 3.
19 - Brian Sorrell
While it is doubtless that there is no good reason that women play 3 rather than 5 sets, the issue of prize money has never been tied to how long the player plays. If it were, then we should see a sliding scale for everyone, based on how long they appeared on court.
This approach is akin to arguing that similarly, in single occupant sports like boxing, we should scale the purse to the length of the fight. And if the fighters drag the fight out longer to make more money, well all the more enjoyment for us.
Or how about cycling? World record runs should be worth less money because they're quicker. Track & Field? See where this is going folks?
Prize money has never been about "amount of work" or equal "pay". It's a friggin prize for winning a tournament. Period.
This is not an issue of "work". Before one wants to make an argument like the one that our author has tried to make, one needs to establish that the time spent on the court is tantamount to "work" and that the prize money is somehow tied to the amount of time that the winner spends on the court.
Good luck with that.
20 - sal m
thanks for missing the point.
your examples are incorrect as the purse has no bearing on the time it takes to complete the competition, but on the scheduled duration.
boxers who participate in 12 round fights make more than boxers who participate in 8 round fights.
and in the example of cycling, who makes more the top guys in the tour de france, or the guys who win individual events in the velodrome?
you didn't address the issue of scheduled length, as that is the issue. women have to play no more than 3 sets when the men have to play at least 3 sets. the fact that the women's purse in nearly identical and that the top women make more than the top men more than make up for the few bucks difference, especially when you consider how much less tennis the women play.
good luck with that.
21 - manfred
but then again if you see how much jobs this tennisenterprise makes , ie providing jobs in the entire world, entertaining so many people and how much the marketing boys make off of them I think that the amount of money these guys get for winning that tournament is even a little too less.
-manfred
22 - sal m
i think women's players may make more in endorsements then men....i know in the US women players are way more visible than the men.
23 - manfred
Indeed the women do but that's an individual thing. SO sharapova for example really gets 25 million a year outside the WTA.
As for gate receipts it's still the men who attract a larger audience so they are more people and get more money. I believe it is this way.
And also at the women and men; it's only a select few who get the really big sponsorship deals. Just the 'goodlooking ones', like a few years ago and no offense Zina Garrison hardly got any sponsorship deals even though she was very succesful.
-manfred
24 - sal m
manfred:
how to the TV ratings compare between the men and women?
if the men really do draw better at the gate, are their ratings better as well?
if in fact the men do draw better and do get better ratings, then those who feel that women should be paid equally REALLY don't have a leg to stand on. especially if women make more in endorsements.
25 - manfred
And they dont have a leg to stand on. But let's not forget that the men play 5 sets at max and the women only 3 at max. Which is Wimbledon's main argument to not give equal pay to the women. Women put in less hours to win the title.
But this whole emancipation thing and all and Wimbledon is the most conservative tournament in the world with their all in white and no electronic media allowed.
-manfred