What the Rich List is telling me...

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

Having a look through the 2009 young Rich List (for work I swear :)) and have realised that:

• if you are a millionaire under 30 and you are a man, you are from a rich family, or you are an actor, or a footballer, or a rugby player, or a musician, or a cricketer, or a racing driver, or an entrepreneur, or a golfer or a biker.

• if you are a millionaire under 30 and you are a woman you are from a rich family, or you are a model, an actress or a musician. That is all.

Any thoughts?

I never really thought about how the bias towards male sports in tilting so much money towards men, stupid I know.

I meant: "the bias towards male sports IS tilting so much money towards men" - that's it TBE. The women are making money doing the things women have been doing for millennia: being born, looking pretty, carrying a tune. The men are benefitting hugely from the sports situation.

Sport is about entertainment, the more people want to watch it the more money involved in the sport. Other than female Tennis players and athletics most other sports done by women don't really generate that much interest from either men or women.

It is difficult because you can't force people to want to watch something that they don't like. And if people are not interested no one is going to invest in something that won't make them money as they are businesses not charities.

So how exactly could this change i am not sure.

But when it comes to things like the olympics/winter olympics they seem to put a lot of female events on TV and people watch it. Or in the London marathon for example, I doubt people blank out during the bits where they are looking at the womens race.

So when it's put on an equal footing, I think people do watch it.

That's what i meant by athletics people are interested in Female Tennis and Athletics (which includes Olympics etc)

duh sorry my eyes skipped straight to tennis. It's a self-fulfilling prophesy though isn't it - they show female athletics events, so people get to know the main players etc, so it fuels interest, so they can show them. Why not with football/cricker/motorsports/golf?

When was the last time any of us:

1. Bought tickets to a sports match/event (featuring either men or women)?

1. Bought any sport related merchandising (eg football shirts) for ourselves?

1. Made a specific appointment to sit down and watch a sports event either at home or in the pub?

Suspect that for every time a woman does this, there are 10-15 times a man does it (making up the figures, but suspect I'm in the right area). So more men are active viewers of sport than women, and they prefer to watch men than women playing (not going into the reasons why, that's a whole other thread). ie they bring in more revenue to the sport.

Tennis is interesting, though, because I think more viewers of both sexes watch men's tennis than women's.

The feminist stance would be to say women should do more to support other women in sport. So we should all buy tickets to women;s football matches, buy women's cricket DVDs, watch women's tennis on TV more etc. Only then will women's sport generate the same revenue as men's, and ergo raise the revenue that sportswomen earn. Personally, I'd rather pull my own teeth out.

I also find it hard to give a crap about whether Venus Williams earns less than Nadal - not exactly poor, is she, plus she has developed a nice sideline in fashion, which probably isn't open to him. Probably deeply anti-feminist of me not to care, but there you go though.

1. Not for ages
2. Not ever
3. Pretty frequently actually, probably a few days ago.

More an indication of money shortage than interest shortage though!

It is pretty unfair that the female equivalent of Wayne Rooney (in skill terms!) is probably working full time in Tesco and practising if she's lucky maybe once a week.

Ah, you see I'm one of the "not interested in watching, find watching sport dull" brigade!

Interesting point about women's footballers - I don't know if they are pro or am.