Seeing as the Tennis board is dead I thought I might as well post this here.
The big man himself, the number one on tour, the dominant Serb has come out saying essentially that men should fight for higher pay then women in tennis.
Of course this has been met with tons of criticism, as you'd predict with this kind of topic.
Fact is though that he's 100% completely spot on.
It's basic economics and at the end of the day male tennis is sooo much better to watch than women's tennis and it brings in far more viewers and spectators. This is without even taking into account the whole things with sets in Grand Slam tournaments.
It reminds me of seeing articles of how most sports (including football) have unfair pay towards women. At some stage you need to realise the economy. You're not going to pay one worker the same as someone else in the same position despite doing a much $hitter job.
Anyways.
Thoughts?
Novak Djokovic
posted on 22/3/16
comment by #4zA (U19575)
posted 7 minutes ago
comment by Ioavirgo (U10470)
posted 31 minutes ago
Simple solution for me.
Appearance fee equal however bonus fee is a % of TV revenue.
Therefore whichever gender generates more in TV sales will earn more.
Under the current set up, Men will naturally earn more due to their TV deals generating more revenue. However if women start pulling in the numbers the bonus fee will see their earnings rise above the men.
It's up to both Tours to get creative in how they generate more revenue in TV deals/
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grate idea
the players will be encouraged to put on good shows and exciting games to maximize viewers
everybody wins
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Heaven help us!
posted on 22/3/16
comment by 8bit (U2653)
posted 1 hour, 44 minutes ago
People want to watch sport at the highest level, men's sport is more popular for the same reason the PL is more popular that league 2... men just have a higher physical potential. Tennis is one of the sports where the women's game is at a high level though. They should be playing 5 sets in grand slams then there wouldn't be an issue with equal pay.
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Equal pay, in sport, has absolutely nothing to do with this. Tennis players aren't paid per hour or on the basis that they contractually put in a pre determined number of tournament hours so I'm completely miffed as to why people keep bringing this up as a reason women deserve less than men.
In the sporting sphere, it literally makes not one ounce of sense.
posted on 22/3/16
comment by 50...feck Giroud (U1147)
posted 8 hours, 7 minutes ago
Feminist is a good thing but mixed with PC it's a disaster. The response from media outlet typically is PC and this makes the feminist views stupid.
Men are physically more capable than women. Women could no way go 5 sets and play as many matches as men. Just not possible at all. They struggle with consistency in 3 sets ffs. Simple economics is the right term for this, no PC BS. Just hardcore facts. Also that thing that this CEO said about women should be thanking Federer and Nadal was spot on
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That's exactly it. If they had the physical capabilities they'd be doing 5 sets just like the men do, but they can't. Saying that I'm sure that men aren't just born to be able to cope with that, they train to get up to and also maintain that level.
Men spending more money to be able to go the distance = men should get paid more to go the distance
posted on 22/3/16
They're training for the same sport it's not like 100m runners vs 10000m runners where they're training for different events. If they get equal pay at grand slams they should at least play 5 sets.
posted on 22/3/16
If the girls want the same prize money then they should play 5 sets like the men do in my opinion, simple really.
The ladies want equality, but you would not be happy if you went to work and found out somebody else was being paid the same for working far less hours.
The women players have never had it so good.
posted on 22/3/16
As above
By paying men and women the same in the slams they are actually supporting inequality
Men have to win 3 sets, Women can earn as much for less work. That isn't equal...
I notice that there hasn't been any discussion from female tennis about women playing 3 sets in slams?
posted on 22/3/16
All these feminists like to pick and choose when they're equal and when they're not. If the men's game is bringing the sport more money and exposure then they should be reaping the benefits.
Society has gone so far in the campaign for gender equality that it's now now gone the other way and making such a big deal about everything women-related and sweeping men's stuff under the carpet.
For example, the big old fanfare for international women's day which is celebrated worldwide and has been around for about 100 years... I had to google to see if international men's day actually existed - it does and has been around in a few countries for about 25 years
posted on 23/3/16
comment by 8bit (U2653)
posted 15 hours, 45 minutes ago
They're training for the same sport it's not like 100m runners vs 10000m runners where they're training for different events. If they get equal pay at grand slams they should at least play 5 sets.
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I did say that wasn't an exact comparison, just a reasonably fair analogy. Different event, yes, same sport though.
Not my primary point, however, which was that sportsmen and women don't get paid by the hour so why should the fact that men play more sets have anything to do with it? I literally can't, for the life of me, understand this argument because if for example, 10'000 people show up to watch women play three sets, but 5'000 show up to watch a men's game, then why should the men then be getting a bigger slice of that when they've drawn less paying punters? Makes not an inkling of sense.
I think men do deserve to be paid more, but not for the hours they play, simply because their tour draws far more money than that of women's, both in tickets and in television contract.
Everywhere, outside of the slams, this does apply and the men's prize money is bigger than that of the women, however, with the Slams and some other tournaments like Indian Wells sold as package deals / collective bargaining agreements, I can see why the prize money has been evenly distributed at these tournaments. I don't necessarily agree with it (as the women's tour most definitely is riding the coattails of the men's) but television companies and fans are paying for package deals in these instances.
This is why the "sets played" makes no sense in regards to a sport that is working on the economic principle of supply and demand.
posted on 24/3/16
Best solution would be to separate the WTA and ATP tournaments then pay accordingly i.e distribute the revenue accordingly to the players.
Or ditch the gender division and play them against each other
posted on 24/3/16
Sprinters and long distance runners have to train just as hard, it's not like 10,000m runners are working 100 times as hard as 100m. If men should get paid more because of viewing figures it a separate thing, they get paid the same at Grand Slams but women play 3 sets so they're getting paid a higher rate. Don't see any reason why they can't play 5 sets they would just need to train harder. Men's tennis just had probably the greatest era of all time which is why its so popular but before Federer came along it was pretty boring for a while.