The arguments for and against more commercial air time and money for women in professional sport are numerous either way. I think that it is such a complicated discussion that it is difficult to know where to start.
If you asked teenage boys and girls the world over, right at this moment, who their favourite famous person was, who would win the popular vote amongst the boys, and vice versa amongst the girls?
Something like Lebron James, and Meghan Markle?
How many women watched that royal wedding vs. how many watched the 2019 World Cup Final?
Questions like this are very important in such a discussion. Because it is important as to what both sexes like, and what both sexes admire. Generally speaking, of course.
Because mostly here, we are talking about market demand.
Does Annamiek van Vleuten work just as hard as Tom Dumoulin?
Yes, probably. And if she does not, then that is probably only because she doesn’t have to race as long a distances, over quite as tough a terrain. Which is because she actually isn’t allowed to.
Rather than isn’t able to.
But performance isn’t really the issue here. I don’t see it as an argument that women should not receive as much pay from sport as men because they are not as fast or strong. Whilst the same species, when we talk physically, men and women are rather different creatures. Many men make the point that they only want to watch the best (as in their opinion faster and stronger is all that matters), and make the fair point that they (and let’s face it, pretty much nobody apart from friends and family) do not go out of their way to watch 14-17 year old boys play sport, and that their ‘standard’ generally equates with open age women competition.
But as I’ve already mentioned, I think that it’s about market demand. If female sportspeople can attract the same interest as male sportspeople, then simple standards of performance are irrelevant.
Will people develop a genuine interest in a sport because it is highly commercially viewable to them, or will their genuine interest seek out this sport regardless? For me personally, a straight male (also relevant in this discussion, as whilst there is no strict rule, I think that straight men are more likely to have an interest in sport than gay men, whilst the reverse is possibly true with women), watching sport was most of my life as a teenager. Some of my sporting heroes were highly publicised ones (Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen come to mind), but others not so much. I was a massive fan of distance running, and in particular of men’s distance running. This was despite the fact that big athletic meetings in Zurich and Oslo, etc were never shown on television. Still, I would try to find the results in the very small print in the newspaper. And when the World Championships and Olympics came along, you could be certain that I’d be watching a 5,000 or 10,000 metres race if possible, even if it meant waking up at 2am. Names like Haile Gebreselassie, Paul Tergat, Salah Hissou, Ismael Kirui, Daniel Komen, and Noureddine Morceli became as immediate to me as family members!
My point here is that I think that most teenage boys had such a passion for one sport or another. Whereas I do not believe that most teenage girls do.
Let’s face it, watching sport with such a heavy focus isn’t greatly logical. I mean, you are taking a great interest in others, who quite frankly, have no real impact on your life (or shouldn’t). Many women simply see sport, or at least the viewing of sport, as pointless. It is hard to argue against that. Maybe women prefer to go out and see a movie (that might have a storyline that is more personally relatable than kicking a ball or riding a bike), or to learn another language, or to chat to friends, or to shop (now this I don’t see as very logical either, at least if it is done with a heavy focus)?
I live in Australia, and whilst men’s sport is shown more than women’s, the women certainly get a ‘fairer’ go than in most places in the world. There is opportunity in many cases, to build a ‘brand’, if you will. But if you take an ‘average’ male on television and take an ‘average’ female on television, the male who only takes an average interest in sport will probably be able to name a dozen male Australian footballers (let’s say from all codes, rugby, AFL, soccer). The female on the other hand, might be lucky to name a single female equivalent (perhaps Sam Kerr). Now this is partly due to the less exposure of the female sports stars, but it is also due to the general significantly less interest in watching sport that woman have as opposed to men.
Not helping the situation is that many women who do watch sport, prefer to watch the top men rather than the top women.
We come to tennis, where women have had great success (at least in comparison to other women) in terms of gaining earning power, or at least a strong earning share. Let’s forget about the 5 sets vs. 3 argument (though I think that women should play 5, at least from the quarters onwards when you have time to do that), but just at the fact that women now receive the same pay as the men at the grand slams (actually Ash Barty just won the biggest prize in tennis history at the year end ‘5th’ slam, though perhaps this had something to do with it being ‘bought’ by China…..Singapore – the previous host – certainly provided a good enough product). I probably watch more women’s tennis than men’s….as LS noted, the big 3 dominance for THIS long can get a bit wearing….and whilst I appreciate the GOAT battle for its current and future historic ‘sporting’ significance, the first week of men’s slams is usually very lacklustre. Less power can lead to a more interesting women’s matches sometimes, as serves are far more breakable, and you can get longer rallies (by the way, the women hit their groundstrokes almost as hard as the men, though many are much slower at getting around the court).
Anyway, at this years’ Australian Open I went to the semi-finals; to the women’s semi-finals. It was actually by choice. But just for interests’ sakes, I checked out the prices of all of the big days, and the men’s finals tickets were significantly more expensive than the women’s. It is also important to note, that there were far more tickets still available to the day that I wanted to go to, then there were to the other days. And if memory serves me correctly, the men’s final was sold out, whilst the women’s final wasn’t.
That to me, says that women tennis players are lucky to get equal pay.
Even just wandering about the Australian Open with a ground pass, it is almost always harder to get a seat to a men’s match, than to a woman’s. I’m not kidding. As a fan of women’s tennis, that doesn’t bother me. But I don’t ignore that. And neither should anyone who is interested in this subject matter.
It’s been in the news the past couple of days, that Australia’s female soccer players will now receive equal money as Australia’s male soccer players, at least in terms of when they play for our country. Our female soccer players are more successful internationally, but nevertheless, do they have the same market demand as the men? Probably not. A male world cup qualifier probably attracts at least 40,000 people, whereas you would be lucky to get 10,000 to a female equivalent. And probably like with the tennis, it is likely that those tickets are cheaper.
I have been to a few women’s soccer matches in our national league. Those crowds probably never exceeded 2,000. In the men’s equivalent they probably always get at least 10,000 to matches. Young men want to go and watch football. Young women (always generally speaking) do not.
How many groups of men around the water cooler discuss last weekend’s football results?
How many groups of women do the same?
Personally I quite like watching women’s soccer, and women’s basketball (it isn’t all about dunking), which I still go to locally. But I am in the vast minority.
Those sports are laughed at by many men. And it’s true, that there are significant differences, in terms of athletic prowess. Women’s soccer is noticeably slower than men’s, though tactically I think that it can be watched in just as enjoyable a way (slightly less reliable defences can help too). The actual skills on the ball of the top players are first class, but a little bit like in tennis, their lesser speed of foot is probably the biggest noticeable difference for mine. Because yeah, some women hit some absolutely cracking goals, they really do.
In basketball it really is mainly the jumping. The passing and shooting is pretty much on the same level (less overall height means less number of ‘easy’ shots and slightly lower scoring numbers in women’s games).
But what about cycling?
Interestingly, I think that female cyclists have a better chance to be more popular – generally speaking – than soccer players and basketball players, or at least closer to being considered as entertaining as their male counterparts; for the reason that cycling isn’t an athletic sport. Not really. And so, the difference between Ala or Bala, or Niewia exploding off the front of the peloton at the beginning of a climb (come on guys, Bala might just do it once!) shouldn’t be very different at all, aesthetically. The man might be doing 50 km/h and the woman might be only doing 40 km/h, but if they are increasing their lead on their rivals just as quickly as each other, then ‘the look’ shouldn’t be as noticeable as a dunk vs. a layup.
As many have mentioned in this thread, and on many others, it can also be argued that female road cycling is more exciting because there is less control and there isn’t the same depth in their top teams, as there is in Ineos, QS, Jumbo.
But these discussions can go on for many more thousands of words. For mine, women cyclists should have the same racing opportunities as the men. Should they have the same race coverage? No, at least not initially. But they certainly should get more coverage than what they currently get. Some men – who are already fans of men cycling – will watch it.
But will many women?
And on another topic, which many might consider totally irrelevant, but actually is: I read that the top ten female models in the world earn roughly 80 million dollars a year between them, whereas the top ten male models earn about 10% of that.
That is some serious food for thought. Should there be equal pay for male models?
Whether models – any models – should earn such levels of money for ‘mere’ modelling is another matter, and is irrelevant. Market demand says that they ‘should’. And where does this demand come from? Well, it probably comes mostly from a genuine interest that many women have for fashion.
If women as a whole want closer to equal pay to men in sports, then more non participating women need to get out there, and buy a ticket. But I am not going to demand that they do it.