Equal Pay For Women In Sport Is About Spectator Interest, Not Civil Rights

Periodically, the gender equality debate extends itself into sports prizemoney. Equal prizemoney for men’s and women’s competitions has been perhaps most strongly advocated and debated in tennis.

The US Open made prizemoney in the men’s and women’s events equal in 1973. The other three Grand Slams followed suit from 2000. Prizemoney is usually equal in other major events which host both men’s and women’s tournaments. There are however, more men’s tournaments during the season, particularly on the satellite circuit, so more overall earning potential for men outside, say the top 20 or 30.

Proponents of equal prizemoney tend to argue almost exclusively on political “justice” grounds. Opponents tend to fall into the trap of arguing that men play at a higher standard or play longer matches (thus receiving less pay per hour “worked”). The Daily Mail’s recent, cursory statistical analysis of the 2013 Australian Open is a case in point.

Both arguments are wrong. Obviously their conclusions can’t BOTH be wrong, however both their premises are.

Arguments that the top men play the sport at a higher standard than women, or play for longer eg. 5 sets instead of 3 are true as statements of fact, but irrelevant.

Salaries and prizemoney in professional sports come from people paying to watch live or on TV and from advertisers: spectators and sponsors. In sports with concurrent male and female competitions, such as tennis tournaments, if the men attract a larger audience for a longer time, then they should claim a larger share of the gate and sponsorship revenue, but only because that tournament revenue is communal. If they played in separate tournaments and the women's event attracted more spectator and sponsorship interest, it wouldn't matter if the men played ten times as long.

Professional sport is one of the areas of the economy which should most be left to the free market, or to determine its own market rules, such as salary caps.

Suppose a particular sport attracts much more spectator interest to the women’s event, say ice skating. Then it will almost certainly attract more sponsorship revenue on top of the extra gate takings. Thus, the women should demand higher pay than the men, just like women fashion models do.

Conversely, in reality most sports have much higher remuneration for men; for example cricket, athletics, golf, basketball. That is indirectly because the men’s events are of a materially higher standard. This leads to more spectator interest, more sponsorship, greater TV rights and hence higher salaries and prizemoney for the players.

This isn’t sexism: it’s people making a free choice to watch the highest standard of competition and the advertising dollars following. Men are better than women at the overwhelming majority of sports and they also play and watch more sport in general. Therefore they will earn more from it … unless the Greens win government, in which case all competitive sport will be banned because it ranks people.

As for women’s tennis, it irks me that women’s prizemoney is the same as men’s in the major tournaments, because the standard of gameplay is so much lower and the matches are shorter (in many major tournaments at least). But perhaps I’m being chauvinist in suspecting the men’s game attracts more revenue because it’s played at a higher standard. Maybe women’s tennis has a sufficient following among women to justify equal prizemoney. That could have been a major factor in the US Open giving in to women’s demands in 1973. I can’t imagine basketball authorities ever doing the same.

However, there is hard evidence that men's tennis finals attract larger TV audiences than women's. They also last longer, meaning that larger audiences are watching more sponsors' ads. The stadia are full, meaning the gate revenue is the same for both, unless tickets for the men's final cost more. This is a pretty solid argument that men tennis players draw greater revenue to the game and therefore deserve higher prizemoney.

Interestingly, there is much less prizemoney for doubles than for singles in both men’s and women’s tennis. That’s purely economic: on the whole, spectators aren’t as interested in the doubles.