Mich78BEL said:
Equal pay for equal work yes. In that case women tennis players for example should be paid less at the grand slams as they only have to win 2 sets in stead of 3. Women's cycling races are also shorter usually, so again they should be paid less. I can go on...
(Off topic but there's no patriarchal nature of our society, thats bull**** feminist made up)
I don't know the reason behind only 3 sets in women's tennis, but a lot of the divides in event length are archaic. Mentioning the shorter races in cycling is not really fair because the UCI has instituted rules insisting on a ten day maximum, 110km average maximum and other things like that, so there isn't the
opportunity to race the same as the men even if they wanted to. If a winner of a decathlon gets paid more than a winner of a heptathlon on the basis that they've had to do more events and have therefore earned it more, then that's not reasonable because there is no decathlon for women, so they don't get equal earning potential. There isn't equal
opportunity to earn. So there needs to be another way to quantify it.
You praised Aapjes' post suggesting that men's sport should be economically different to women's sport based on the audience it draws. Which seems eminently sensible, since it keeps the bottom line in mind. It does make it hard for a sport without exposure to gain exposure unless it gets given a helping hand, either by an injection of funding for national interest (like British cycling) or from extensive dedication to development from the governing bodies (like the LPGA), but it's reasonable. But it would then stand at odds with your argument above that the amount of work done should be the driving factor behind salarying sports.
Women's tennis events are shorter in length, but they often draw a comparable audience to men's (note comparable, not necessarily equal or better), so should their earning potential reflect
that instead of the shorter events? Do you then feel that, say, female biathletes should be paid less than the men as their races are shorter in distance, or equal because they're typically similar in time run? Or equal, potentially even higher in many places, on the economic basis because the women's races draw similar audience numbers?
Judging the payment of sportspeople by demand is sensible, but dooms the niche or smaller sports (and here much of women's sport is included) to outsider, underfunded status which leads to small fields, and external assistance is needed in order to create development (which is what the women have been asking for that starts this debate periodically). Judging it on the amount of distance run, or time spent, or work done, is only fair if there is the
opportunity to do the same distance run, or time spent, or work done, as the men. If you judge it on the economic basis, then at least theoretically, women can earn as much as men if their events draw as much in attendance/audience figures and so on - it's just that only a select handful of sports have women's events developed enough that they are able to do this.