Novak Djokovic saying women tennis players should receive less prize money than men

[sportinguista]

Because they have less spectators apparently. Is it me or does this just devalue women's sport?

[scallopsrgreat]

It's interesting how you say you don't care whether you are watching men or women's sport but then spend three paragraphs telling us how you do in fact mind .

It's all about women's sport being 'worthy' isn't. Something men's sport never has to be. Worthy of course, being defined by men.

[scallopsrgreat]

isn't it?

[SpeakNoWords]

Fgs, no one has said all women's sport is of a very high standard. You've missed the point, as Scallops has said. It's about women's sport being valuable and worthy in itself, not in comparison to men's sport.

[EBearhug]

The women's football team for England are not as skilful as the men. Therefore it is not the best football to watch.

You know why? Because the top women's football players get paid something like £20k a year, not £20 million or whatever their male counterparts are paid. Some of them have had to take second jobs to pay the bills. Some of them have had to sofa-surf with friends, because they couldn't afford to keep a roof over their heads. If they were paid equitably with men, they could dedicate themselves solely to their training and wouldn't have to worry about doing wife work at home - they could afford cleaners or childcare or whatever would make their lives a bit easier. They'd be able to focus on the game without distracting worries like whether they can afford the electricity bill or council tax this month.

Given the completely uneven field they're playing on compared with the men's teams, it's hardly a surprise they're not as skillful. They're doing pretty well for what they do get, I reckon. It'd be nice to see them getting sponsorship deals for things other than sanitary pads, too, but that's probably more than they had before the world cup.

[SpeakNoWords]

The Indian Wells guy, Raymond Moore, has resigned this morning.

[RufusTheReindeer]

Agree with others that womens games should stand alone and not compared to men for all the reasons previously stated

If womens sports were seen as the default i think attitudes would be different

[Lweji]

What happens in ice skating or gymnastics?
Except that they don't attract the same payments as tennis or football.

[SpeakNoWords]

Just found this article, from 2014 so a little out of date, but it has a comparison of prize money by gender across a range of sports:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29665693

Ice skating and gymnastics (artistic) seem to have the same prize money.

[arsenaltilidie]

The reason women are paid less is because women aren't interested in sports as much as men.

Thats the very reason why female models are paid more than their male counterparts. Men arent interested in fashion as much as women.

[SpeakNoWords]

Oh, thank goodness someone has come along to explain it! That's all sorted then.

[msrisotto]

What a moronic statement.

[EBearhug]

Ah that'll be like women don't go into technology careers because they're not interested, won't it?

(You're talking bollocks, arsenaltilidie.)

[absolutelynotfabulous]

Mmm....I kind of get what arsenal is saying. Women ARE less interested in sport than men, in general, and audiences for sport, whether live or on the box, are overwhelmingly male, for most sports at least, and most definitely the high income sports such as soccer. Even then, not all soccer players are well-paid; payments are made according to the entertainment value given.

Sports such as women's football and rugby, whilst not attracting as many people to watch, are at least growing and are more visible, which has to be a good thing. If nothing else, at least these female players will provide excellent role models.

Tennis, I think, is more complex. I'd say the audience is mixed, but perhaps more female. Even so, male players seem to be more popular and thus command more in terms of sponsorship, airtime etc. But I think that's changing, too, slowly. It's not a level playing field, so to speak.

[SpeakNoWords]

Is that true though, that women just aren't interested in sport? A quick Google shows me that US tv audiences for major sports are fairly evenly split between genders. I'd like to know more about it before making a definite statement about audience gender split.

[absolutelynotfabulous]

I suppose it depends on the sport too. I guess, in the US, different sports predominate.

[MrNoseybonk]

Is that true though, that women just aren't interested in sport?

Aren't as interested is what people are saying.
It wouldn't surprise me, although it does vary from sport to sport. Tennis seems to have a lot of female fans.

[noddingoff]

Djokovic's comments made me think of treaclesoda's comment on the equal pay thread, "If it became known that Ms X negotiated a pay rise, Mr Y and Mr Z would be knocking on the boss's door the next week assuming they're entitled to one".
As if he thinks, well I'll be damned, they jolly well did it. Good on them. Of course that must mean that we men are well overdue a payrise because we're better. Right, I'm off down the corridor to hammer on the door....

[Dervel]

Any sport my son gets into will be taken to men's and women's games. End of.

If you are against the pay gap you are against this. It's existence mathematically contributes to it.

[FrozenAteMyDaughter]

Apologies if this has been posted already:www.thedailymash.co.uk/sport/sport-headlines/tennis-pay-should-reflect-society-says-djokovic-20160322107370

[FrozenAteMyDaughter]

www.thedailymash.co.uk/sport/sport-headlines/tennis-pay-should-reflect-society-says-djokovic-20160322107370

[BoatyMcBoat]

It's a ludicrous pov.

Back in the day, women tennis players were paid less than their male counterparts. It was terribly unfair, and it took years and years of hard work to change it.

Do women spend less time training?
Do they train only in the 20 or so minutes between washing up the makings and getting the cake out of the oven?
Do women just have a bit of a girly knock-about, or are they trying to actually win their matches? Are they trying to win, less hard than the men do? Are they using their muscles less, their brains less? Their eyes less?
Perhaps they're actually thinking about whether their bum looks big in their shorts, rather than where that ball is going to land and what's the best stroke to use to return it?

Actually, it's just that men are more important, isn't it? They deserve more money because they have this bit of gristle hanging about between their legs, and we all know that that governs everything. Theirs is bigger than ours.

Fuck off, Djokovic. I used to like you.

[Lweji]

That list of prize money in sports was very useful, thank you.

The biggest differences between female and male versions are in football, cricket and golf, probably reflecting the coverage and interest that male championships get.

But, I know that if a sport is shown on tv and results are publicised, I often become interested and follow it.

For example, I like and follow F1. I used to be on top of it when it was shown on the main channels and if it got news coverage. Where I live now, it's on a paid for sports channel and I have to actively seek out the results. Naturally, my interest is lower as I tend to forget it exists.
I do believe the same happens for most sports for which there are female only championships. It doesn't get the same coverage or air time.

As do female tennis. It's always played second fiddle to men's tennis. Different days, different courts, different coverage.

[sportinguista]

Apparently the India Wells tournament chief has resigned as well for sexist comments along the lines of "the women's game "rides on the coat-tails" of the men".

How very insulting. Serena Williams and Martina Navratilova have spoken out against it. There is also a graph on BBC site showing that during Grand Slam times there is actually more interest in Serena Williams than many of the male players.

It actually makes me angry that we are even having to have these conversations in this day and age.

[Mide7]

Something I've noticed recently is the increased expose for cricket. I think the women have a similar professional set up to the men now and the tests get a similar level of media exposure.

I wonder what has brought about this interest. Cricket isn't as big as football in this country, does that help?

[ABetaDad1]

I would like to see the hard data on the number of people that pay for tickets to see the women's game versus men. Taking into account the fact that men's games may be scheduled at more popular times, etc.

Reading the comments on this thread it seems not at all clear the men do attract a bigger audience. People may 'believe' the men attract a bugger audience but that 'belief' may simply be a prejudice.

I think it is true to say that brand marketeers pay more for top female stars than men to advertise ther brands (just like female models get paid more than male models). That is money that goes direct to the player though and not through the tournament so that is a different issue from prize money.

It is a similar argument that female star actresses are having over theur pay versus male stars. There is a 'belief' that male stars attract cinema audiences but I never see hard data - again that 'belief' may just be an unfounded prejudice.

As a general rule there is a I think a wilful disregard for equality in high paid professions. It comes from a general indifference in society based on envy which basically says 'she already gets paid a lot whats her problem?'. There is also an over reliance on so called 'market rates' which is a general catch all that once your ay gets above a certain level then it is up to you to negotiate and its just tough luck if you don't get what you deserve - you didnt negotiate hard enough.